


What Bank Vaults Are To Bobby Pins

by briggs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, it is the Emotional Good Citizen Boyfriends Turned Robbers that you need, stiles swears a bit, they're still good people though i promise, this contains illegalness and general crime-committing actions, this is my longest, this is not the Unfeeling Robbers AU that you asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4201929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briggs/pseuds/briggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles robs houses, and he has recently convinced Scott to tag along for the greater good by using strained Robin Hood analogies. Stiles, admittedly, does not expect to make friends, but he's not one to oppose the plans of the Gods when they are so obviously presented to him. </p><p>OR<br/>the robbers AU that I took too far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> back in November, i decided i was going to do a series of AU writings every week instead of one big story for the whole month. of course, I instead got caught up in this one, wrote way too much, and then ran with it. the prompt, which i got from a tumblr post that I can no longer source was this: "dude, are we robbing the same house? AU" 
> 
> i have another account on here, whatthehalestilinski, if you wanna check that out, but i'd rather just start fresh on this one.
> 
> enjoy!!

Stiles cuts the engine, looking across to Scott in the passenger seat. Scott's right knee is bouncing nervously, creating an uneven beat against the music that had previously been playing. Stiles mirrors the beat with his thumbs on the steering wheel, adding to it, maybe dancing around a little bit to get his own anxiety levels down.

Scott whips his head around to look at him, puppy eyes concerned, and his end of the rhythm cuts off. His arms are still crossed, and he looks as if he's either about to complain or scold.

Stiles speaks first, because he's really not in the mood for either of those things. "Scott, you gotta chill. It's gonna be fine, I've done this like, six times already and if they call the police, they’ll never suspect us. If you pick the right houses, the rich bastards never even know anything is wrong. Come on, bro, don't bail on me now."

"But Stiles, I.. I don't know--"  
  
“Dude, our first B&E together! Come on, please? I can do all the work.”  
  
“We had bacon and eggs together for the first time when we were six, how does that have anything to do with--”  
  
“Oh my god, _no_ , Scott, I mean B&E like _Breaking and Entering_. How do you even remember that, dude, what the fuck? Whatever, not the point. The point is that we’re gonna be a team from now on! We have to do this together!”  
  
“I, well… Stiles…”

"No, wait, never mind. That was terrible of me, I take it back. You're my best friend, I'm not going to pressure you into this, okay, I'm not that horrible. You asked me to show you, so how about I just show you? You can sit here and watch the professional, and I'll go over everything I did with you again when I'm done."

"Well... okay. Yeah, that sounds good." Scott finally unfolds his arms and starts whipping his head around the car, checking if anyone is watching them and being incredibly suspicious about it. "Do you have binoculars or something?"

"Uh, yeah... Yeah I think they're in the dufflebag somewhere. Gimme a sec. Remember though, don’t pull up to close to the house and don’t follow me -- go a different way around." He pulls the bag up into his lap from the backseat, digging around until he finds the binoculars. He also pulls out his mask, and starts digging around again until he can find his flashlight. "Alright, you good? I think I'm gonna-- will you stop looking around like that? You look so obvious, dude. You may as well have a flashing neon sign on your forehead." He takes one last look at Scott, pats his shoulder sort of condescendingly. "Watch and learn."

Once he's out of the relative and easy safety of the car, he looks around casually, like he's about to cross the street. He puts his mask up, then his hood, truly thankful it's Halloween and he can walk around with a V for Vendetta mask on and only look mildly suspicious. The job is going to be thirty trillion times easier tonight, even if he does have to walk around feeling like his costume is missing a bag of hot Cheetos and a bottle of Code Red Mountain Dew.

He walks around the block to the other side, pretending to be on the phone. It's perfect, really. Having a calm conversation over the phone while walking, especially laughing lightly a little, makes you so normal that people forget they've seen you, regardless of whatever ridiculously suspicious garb you're wearing. Helps if you're white, but again, that's society's fault. He understands he’s reaping the benefits of white privilege, but he sort of needs it.

Stiles walks until he finds the house he and Scott passed half an hour ago, with all the lights off, no car in the driveway and no decorations. The curtains are open, he sees as he walks closer, which is even better because he can't see anyone anywhere through the window. They really are out on vacation, like he and Scott thought two weeks ago when they first scouted the house. Stiles will admit he takes probably a little too much time and caution working these, but he isn't about to risk anything by being just plain stupid.

He finishes his imaginary call to Scott on the porch, looking in the plant near the door and under the mat for any hidden keys while he does, casual as hell. He finds a key -- luckiest day of his life -- underneath a weird rock that turns out to be hollow and goes to unlock the door. Except it's already open.

Stiles will acknowledge how bad of an idea it is later, but he sees it as another shot of pure luck and opens the door.

As soon as the door is opened wide enough, Stiles can see another dude dressed in all black, looking right back at him with eyes that are slowly getting angry. Stiles steps in and closes the door, because like _hell_ he's giving up this house and running back to Scott with his tail between his legs. Especially not to someone stupid enough to leave the door open.

The other guy -- who's pretty big, honestly, and maybe also kind of hot -- is about to say something when Stiles beats him to it with a laugh, one that brings him to double over, hands on his knees. He calms himself down enough to say, "Dude, are we robbing the same house?" before dissolving into laughter again.   
  
When Stiles looks up again, finally, the dude looks uncomfortable and even more pissed. “I don’t care what you’re doing. I’m done, I’m getting out of here. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of my way.”  
  
“Hey hey hey, wait. Just wait for a second, okay? I’m not here to attack you or get you caught, dude, alright, so just chill for a minute. If you don’t mind, it’d be great if you told me what you took so I could, you know, play off of that. If you took silverware, I don’t want to take plates, you know what I mean?” Stiles gets that he’s kind of got his hands orbiting around him like satellites, but he’s not sure that alone completely merits the look this dude is giving him. He hasn’t got two heads, he’s just _animated_.

“Actually, I do mind. Get out of my way, or I’ll show you what your own liver looks like.”  
  
Stiles sighs, because while he gets that burglars can’t really afford to be friendly, this guy just isn’t giving him anything to work with. He isn’t afraid or anything, he’s just… yeah, okay. He’s a little afraid. “Dude, come on, listen. I could sabotage you so hard here right now, would you just listen to me? I like to burgle in ways that don’t get me caught, and if that’s not your game, I get it, I won’t judge your poor lifestyle choices after today. But it would be cool if--”  
  
“Poor lifestyle choices?” The dude crosses his arms and hot damn, honestly. Like, he’s an asshole, but he’s also fucking hot. The muscles bulge and threaten to rip the black Henley hugging the man’s torso, and Stiles determinedly pretends he can’t feel his dick twitch, because he already hates this guy.

“I just said I’m not judging, okay? But I already know you left the door open when you came in, which is basically breaking the first rule of the Unofficial Unwritten Handbook of Robbery for Dummies. You’re not exactly model material here so far, dude. Well, methodically, at least.” Stiles says, and the last part is so hushed he’s not even sure he heard himself say it. The dude’s eyebrows raise anyway.

“You’re not even wearing gloves, I’m not sure you’re allowed to critique my methods.”  
  
“What? Not wearing gloves? That’s fucking ridiculous, look, they’re right on my--” Fuck. “Fuck.” He fucked up. “I fucked up.”  
  
“Congratulations on your groundbreaking discovery. Now if you like the use of healthy limbs, stop blocking the door.”  
  
Stiles crosses his arms, plants his feet a little further than shoulder width apart to maybe gain something on Mr. Felony Babe over there. _Maybe_. Of course, to no avail. “No. You haven’t told me what I -- HEY! You can’t just-- Listen here, buddy--”  
  
The dude puts him back down right in front of the wall next to the door, pinning him there with a death-stare that definitely isn’t arousing at all. Nope. Not even a little. Stiles prays to the Gods above that the room is still dark enough that this guy is oblivious, because he still needs something on him. Like his dick. You know what? Preferably everything. He needs everything on this dude.

He finally turns away, walking toward the door again, when Stiles leans over to grab his arm, tugging him back. Naturally, the dude is a solid wall of unmoving and beautiful marble slabs, so it doesn’t do anything apart from shocking him into stillness and causing him to whip his head back around to look at Stiles with a look on his face that seriously questions his level of audacity.  
  
“You’re gonna think I’m an idiot for asking, but give me your name?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Stiles definitely does not watch his butt on his way out.

It takes a while before Stiles can shift his brain back into Burgle Mode, and even then he makes a few more mindless mistakes, but he finishes the house without any fuck-ups serious enough to get him convicted, he knows that. Stiles isn’t an idiot, of course he did approximately thirty-six hours total of research on robbery laws and B&E laws and trespassing laws and substantial evidence and how to ensure he does not obviously and visibly incriminate himself in any of those factors before actually trying one of these things out.

Anyway, he takes some hidden silverware from the basement because it looks expensive and dusty and unused, jewelry from the very bottom of a box, and an empty, visibly unused iPhone 5s from the desk. It’s a small booty, but it’ll ensure that by the time the owners notice anything is gone, no one will be able to help them. He’s also sure to smudge his fingerprints on the handle of the door on his way out.  
  
He goes back to Scott and makes sure to leave out everything about the very hot and very mean opposing robber that was in there with him. He does relay everything else, though, and Scott looks less uneasy. Maybe they can do the next one together, Stiles thinks as he drives them back to his empty house to continue their regularly scheduled Friday night movie marathon-sleepover, hopefully enjoying some cheap leftover Halloween candy.

*  
  
Three weeks later, 4:00pm on a Wednesday in November, Stiles and Scott are squatting in a different car (Scott’s) outside a different house in a different neighbourhood in a different town, scouting a decent-looking upper middle- to first-class house. They’ve come around four times already, a couple days apart, and still haven’t seen any lights on or cars in the driveway. They’re just thinking about making their next trip the real deal when Stiles spots him in the rearview mirror.  
  
Walking up the street behind their car is a man dressed in casual black and grey, scruff running down his jaw and outlining his cheekbones. It’s nice that Stiles can see him in the day, but also really _really_ bad. For emotional health reasons. And of-fucking-course he’s scouting the same house they are.   
  
Stiles gets out of the car calmly, ignoring every one of Scott’s questions as he does. He folds his arms over the top of the car and doesn’t even try to wipe the smirk off his face. “Hey, fancy seeing you here, pal.”  
  
Felony Babe stops, whips his head around to look at Stiles and tenses. He curses under his breath, and Stiles can only barely hear it.  
  
“Don’t worry, we’re spotting a different house a couple streets down.”  
  
“That’s great,” the dude spits out, dripping in sarcasm.

Stiles hums in response, pleased at the coincidence while the other guy is frustrated, annoyed, angry. “Tell me your name.”  
  
“Not a chance,” and he keeps walking, no longer paying Stiles any mind.  
  
Stiles huffs a “fine” in response that What’s-His-Face probably doesn’t hear anyway, and ducks back into the driver’s seat of his car.  
  
He won’t let the asshole win this time though, uh-uh. No way. So Stiles doesn’t mention anything to Scott, they finish squatting, plan their adventure for the very same Friday. Stiles prays yet again to whoever’s watching over him up in the bright blue sky that the psychic robber piece of shit now walking past his car has planned his own trip later than that.   
  
*

The next Friday, on schedule and a perfect month after their last attempt, Stiles and Scott roll up to their targeted house -- or a block away from it, anyway. Scott cuts the engine this time, then looks apologetically over to Stiles, knee bouncing again. His puppy eyes go wide and Stiles knows he’s done for.   
  
Stiles sighs, grabbing the dufflebag from the back seat and going through it while he speaks because Scott doesn’t deserve his complete and undivided attention right now. “Fine, Scott, I’ll do this one solo too. You owe me though. When we sell this shit, I’m giving you like, less than forty percent of the profits. No, less than thirty percent. Got it?” He throws the pair of binoculars into Scott’s lap without looking up, maybe sadistically hoping the traitor gets them right to the crotch. “And I want you to buy me a huge Costco-style pack of Nibs.”  
  
“Stiles, the whole motive behind doing this is that we’re poor. I can’t afford to buy you a huge Costco-style pack of Nibs. Those things are revolting anyway, dude.” Stiles can tell Scott’s still looking at him with pleading eyes, waiting for him to look back up and make eye-contact, but Stiles refuses. Call him immature, but he’ll take this win, thank you.  
  
“Yeah, well, whatever. When we’re less poor, then you have to buy me it, okay? And fuck off with your judgemental tone, bro, I don’t question your love of olives _ever_ , even though it’s fucking weird. Hop off my dick man, I’ve got a house to rob.”  
  
“Go get ‘em, man! Good luck!”  
  
“That is a terrible thing to say to someone,” Stiles bites back a little more lightly, laughing, before shutting the passenger door. He laughs again and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking around with an innocent smile on his face. When an old woman walks by him the other way on the opposite side of the street, Stiles smiles at her, and does a kind little wave, which she mirrors pleasantly.  
  
Then he turns into his mark’s property, walking calmly up to the door which is, of course, slightly open, because the Gods above are sadistic and have a collectively terrible sense of humour. Stiles is right about to go into a frenzied panic when he realizes that he doesn’t hear any noise inside whatsoever. The owners aren’t home, no.

The Gods above may have a better sense of humour than he originally thought.  
  
Stiles waltzes into the house laughing again, and soon he sees the same robber dude’s face creep out from around a corner, same scowl on his face pointed directly to Stiles. He rolls his eyes and disappears around the wall again, going back and finishing his job while Stiles finishes laughing from the doorway.  
  
“Man, we just can’t get away from each other, can we?” Stiles finally manages to get out, the dude walking back into the main hallway again.  
  
“Apparently not.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, folding his arms and leaning against the wall, “is this not completely fucking ridiculous to you?”  
  
The dude mirrors the folding of his arms, whether it’s on purpose or not. “You said you weren’t spotting this house.”  
  
“I’m a criminal, dude, like you. You honestly took my word for it? That’s just stupid, man. But don’t think for a second that I decided to rob this house because you were going to. You’re not special, okay, the idea was to get here before you did, pal.”  
  
“Stop calling me that. I’m not your friend.”  
  
“Yeah, whatever buddy,” Stiles shoots back, looking at his nails. “Are you gonna tell me your name yet?”  
  
“No. Let it go and get out of my way.”  
  
Stiles sighs, because this dude is fucking exhausting. Who knew robbers could be so stubborn? “Here, I’ll go first. How about that? My name is Stiles. Come on, at least give me a codename or something? I need a name to call you in my head that isn’t “Felony Babe,” because honestly that isn’t creative enough and it upsets me that I can’t think of anything better.”  
  
“I don’t care what your name is. No.” Felony Babe -- fucking Christ -- turns around and looks like he’s heading into where the basement might be, so Stiles follows, holding his position at the top of the stairs while the dude heads down.  
  
“You forgot to close the door again. Is it like, a signature like with serial killers or do you just have a problem with the first page of rules from Robbing 101?”  
  
The guy throws back his response quickly from the basement, not bothering to show Stiles his face while he does. “Your fly is undone and you aren’t wearing anything with a hood.”  
  
“How do you even--” Stiles calls back, looking down to check before dropping his voice with an, “Aw, fucking hell.”  
  
“Give up, Stiles. This one’s mine. You’ll get me caught.”  
  
Stiles huffs a laugh, leaning against the door to the basement confidently. “Yeah, nice try, dude. Actually using my name isn’t going to soften me up as much as you’d think.” He’s silent for a bit before calling down again. “Can I at least try guessing? Will you tell me when I get it right?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Chris. Is your name Chris? No, never mind, I take that back. You don’t look like a Chris at all.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“How about Peter? Ethan? Evan? Aaron?” Stiles taps his chin thoughtfully, just because it’s fucking fun pissing this dude off. “I know. I know your name. It’s Tyler.”  
  
“Nice try,” Stiles hears from down stairs, and he can feel the bitterness that comes with it. “Now shut up.”  
  
“Dylan.. Daniel… Darren. Adriano? Dwight?” He appears around the corner and Stiles stares him down as he makes his way up the stairs, finally having and enjoying the higher ground. “Are you sure it isn’t Tyler?”  
  
“My name is Derek. Now move.”  
  
“Oooh, Derek,’ Stiles replies, even as he’s moving out of the dude’s -- Derek’s -- way. “Classy. Suits you.”  
  
“I could break you in half with one hand,” Derek growls back, caging and pushing Stiles into the wall behind him with his shoulders somehow, even though they’re still almost two feet apart. His stare is piercing, and Stiles can feel his own heartbeat in his stomach, adrenaline pulsing through his veins at fifty miles an hour.  
  
“Kinky,” Stiles whispers back, and he’s not exactly unmoved by the thought. Of Derek being kinky, obviously, not literally being ripped in half. The worst part is, Stiles doesn’t even doubt that he could do it.   
  
Derek’s face morphs into a venomous smirk, and he growls once more at Stiles before he’s back at the door in the blink of an eye.

“Come on dude, that’s not fair at all. Will you please tell me what you took this time?”  
  
“Bye, Stiles.”   
  
And then Derek is gone, and Stiles is left to himself to carefully rob a house yet again after Derek has left. He sighs, finishes up, manages to find a completely empty and hardly-used laptop in the basement that Derek -- for whatever reason -- decided not to take. He also takes about hundred dollars from random piles of money these idiot rich guys left lying around in absolutely random places like bedside tables and bathroom cabinets and even behind the TV.  
  
He closes the door on his way out after doing one last sweep, laughing lightly and finally allowing himself to feel a little giddy about getting Derek’s name.

When he gets in the car, Scott asks him about the guy who left ten minutes before Stiles did, and he does his best to steer him in a different direction. Guilt twists in him with the knowledge that he’s basically lying (depending on your definition of a lie) to his best friend about something kind of important, but he shakes it off and tells himself that they’ll talk about it at the right time.  
  
*  
  
The next house Stiles and Scott hit they’ve only watched for a couple days, but seeing as during one of their walks around the neighbourhood they overheard a couple talking about how the owners will be gone for the next month and a half, they really can afford to take that risk.

It’s a Sunday night in December this time, but they don’t have any school the next day so they can afford to take their time. They pull up a little closer than usual, but it’s late (even for them) and everyone’s asleep by this point anyway, so it’s not like anyone will see and remember them. Scott isn’t tapping his knee at all, isn’t looking to Stiles with nervous and pleading eyes, and actually looks confident. Maybe even downright determined.

“You’re not gonna bail out on me this time, buddy?”  
  
“No way. After that last-- I can’t. We need to be in this together, and I need to get comfortable with this.” Scott tips his chin up, speaks as if he’s said the same things over and over again into his mirror.  
  
Stiles lightly pats Scott’s thigh. “It’ll be fine, dude. Remember, these guys can afford to lose stuff and there are people like us who need it. We’re like Robin Hood, right?”  
  
“Right.” There’s a slight pause, and then Scott speaks again. “Okay. Yeah, let’s do this.”  
  
Stiles drops his voice as much as he can. “What’s up everybody it’s Cr1TiKal, we’re robbing a house tonight, let’s do this shit.” And, because he’s fucking hilarious, Stiles starts laughing at his own imitation.  
  
“Dude, what?”  
  
“Come on, Scott. Cr1TiKal? Gamer YouTuber? Nothing? God, you uncultured swine. Let’s go.”

They make their way to the house, and actually get inside by themselves without any problem. Scott gets nervous halfway through, and Stiles can tell, but he doesn’t say anything and they keep going. They take more standard, unused, unnoticed things; a couple framed paintings that were stacked in the basement, more jewellery, and three absolutely _legendary_ comics from another stack on a shelf, because even if Stiles doesn’t sell them for the $300 they’re worth, he can still frame them. Scott manages to take a bit of fancy china and an iPhone and they’re on their way.

Except when Stiles goes to open the door and tries to exit, he quite literally _bumps_ into Derek (see also: him walking into a brick wall. It’s the exact same thing). Stiles is already laughing again, doubled over, and Derek looks shocked for a total of 0.003 seconds before looking exasperated. As he brings his hand up to his face, rubbing his temples, he huffs out, “You’ve got to be fucking _kidding_ me.” Which is completely unmerited, alright? Stiles has been nothing but kind to Derek, except maybe also a little annoying and a little frustrating and a little in his way all the time and… okay, maybe kind of merited.

"What a coincidence," Stiles blurts out, smirk creeping up his cheeks.

"Don't even start," Derek bites back.

Stiles crosses his arms, staring Derek down. "It's your own fault this time, pal. You can't blame this one on me."

Derek is just about to speak when a voice behind Stiles interrupts. "Um, Stiles? Why are you talking with the guy who walked out of our last targeted house?"

"Uh," Stiles says intelligently, because there isn't really a way to explain it. Any of it. “How do you even remember that? I really don’t give you enough credit.” He whips around to look at him, which is probably bad body language somehow. Siding with the other person or something like that. "Well, you see Scotty, back in the day--"

"Last month," Derek interrupts, and Stiles can _hear_ him rolling his eyes, but he continues as if Derek hadn’t said anything.

"When I was robbing that first house with you in the car, it turned out that the door was already open. So obviously I thought, ‘fucking score,’ you know? But then I walk in and this dude,” Stiles jerks a thumb behind his back, towards Derek, “Is standing there, looking at me like _I’m_ the crazy one who made a stupid rookie mistake.” Stiles scoffs a kind of laugh, just for good measure. The guy’s an idiot, it’s not his fault he can’t hold in his laughter.  
  
“You didn’t even have gloves on.”  
  
“Whatever, Derek,” Stiles replies, putting a hand up for him to see, though not turning around. “That’s besides the point.”

“Okay, so… Why are you…?” Scott trails off, making vague and abandoned gestures at Derek and Stiles.   
  
Derek sighs, and Stiles looks behind him to make sure he’s not taking off. Instead, he’s just standing there with the door open, one hand folded around his torso and the other elbow resting on top, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Stiles remembers then that they’re kind of speaking quite loudly about robbing with the door to _the house they’re currently robbing_ wide open, and fuck, they’re idiots, aren’t they?  
  
“That’s a good almost-question, Scott. How about I answer it inside so we don’t out ourselves as thieves to the entire neighbourhood we’re in the middle of stealing from, huh? Get in here, Derek. And fucking close the door behind you for once.” There’s a bit of a low rumble of some sort of threat in response and Stiles finds himself rolling his own eyes much more playfully than Derek ever has. He’s met the guy all of three times, this being the fourth, and he’s already so predictable to Stiles.

They go in and Stiles directs them both to the living room he was inspecting earlier, and maybe it’s weird but they make themselves at home in their marked house. It’s tense for a bit before Scott, sweetheart as he is, breaks the silence.  
  
“Um, so, are you guys like, friends then?”  
  
Of course, Stiles says “Yeah, pretty much,” at the same time that Derek growls out another “No.”  He definitely answers ‘no’ a lot, that’s for sure. Stiles silently wonders if he’s ever said yes to anything, ever.

Derek is silent, not bothering to combat Stiles’ answer any more than that, and gets up to leave the living room. Which, talk about bad dynamics. And manners. Derek probably doesn’t know what those are, either.  
  
“Hey, buddy! Come back here, we’re gonna talk about this together. You’re tearing this family apart!” Stiles clutches at his chest at the last part, throwing his head back and draping his arm across his forehead.  
  
Derek whips around at that, staring Stiles dead in the eye and it definitely doesn’t make his stomach clench. What the fuck kind of feeling is that, anyway?   
  
“Whatever, go on. I’ll explain. You just do your thing, rob some shit, I got your back.” Stiles crosses his legs, turning back to his best friend to finish the story. “Anyway, so that was the first time--”  
  
“You guys have met more than once? Dude, what the hell? You didn’t think this was important enough to tell me?” Scott’s face morphs into the true puppy-dog face, the one in which Scott is not only upset but straight-up disappointed in you, which is somehow thirty times worse. This face is one he usually doesn’t even know he’s making because he’s not trying to pressure you, he’s just _genuinely upset and oh god Stiles fucked up._   
  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Scott. I really am. I just-- how do you even explain something like that? It would sound like defeat, okay, and there was no way I was gonna let -- _that guy_ \--” Stiles gestures to where Derek exited a while ago, “Win. Next time I’ll tell you right away, okay?”  
  
Scott doesn’t say anything for a couple beats, mulling over what Stiles said, before he looks up and smiles slightly at him. “Fine, I’ll forgive you. But no next times, alright?”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Can I finish now?”  
  
“Yeah, go.”  
  
“Okay, so that was the first time. Then the second time was when we were squatting outside the last house, you remember? And I got out of the car and literally pretended I couldn’t hear a word you were yelling at me? Sorry for that too, by the way.” Scott gives him a look, but shrugs and nods. “Yeah, so that hot idiot was walking by our car and spotting the same house!”  
  
Scott’s jaw drops, and it’s really kind of funny to see. His mouth is really, really lopsided.   
  
“I know, right? Anyway, so this was also probably pretty dumb, but I told him we were targeting a different house and then tried to get to that one before he did. Only apparently it didn’t work, because later, when I actually went to go break in, I bumped into him again inside the house and you saw him walk outside halfway through my job.”  
  
“Holy crap!”  
  
“Yeah, right? I mean, our luck, seriously. Some deity upstairs has to have some kind of weird hard on for throwing hot guys in my face that I can’t have.”  
  
Scott laughs a bit, and Stiles laughs with him, until Scott speaks again. “That all doesn’t really explain why you’re-- I mean, he-- He doesn’t seem very nice, Stiles.” And Scott’s face is back to Concerned Mom.  
  
“Oh come on, he’s a criminal. You don’t honestly expect him to be an outstanding member of the community and like, care about the planet and shit, do you?”  
  
“Well, okay, but Stiles, he-- why do you treat him like a friend?”

Stiles hesitates, if only because he honestly doesn’t know. In the end, he simply shrugs. “How else would I treat him? Obviously the fates want us together, who am I to oppose?”  
  
“He seems to be okay with opposing, dude.”  
  
“Whatever, Scott, I honestly think he’s just… like that. Probably killed someone once and never forgave himself for it.” Stiles starts laughing at his own joke, but when he looks up, Scott looks completely shocked, both figuratively and literally taken aback.  
  
“Stiles! That’s horrible!”  
  
“It’s a joke, Scotty, chill.” He shifts in his seat just as Derek finally comes back into the room. “Oh, would you look at that. Speak of the devil.” Stiles leans back and drapes his leg over the arm of his chair, crossing his arms and looking smugly at Derek from the corner. "Care to join us for a spot o' tea, Der?" Stiles, drawls in a poor British accent, until Derek is suddenly in front of the chair, glaring at him.

And his eyes turn ice blue.

"Don't call me that." It doesn't sound human.

Stiles tries, honestly, he does, but his throat closes up and he can't speak, even after Derek’s legitimately terrifying murder-stare is gone. There may be a little blood-pee in his pants right now. Once he recovers, of course he goes to say something (because his name is Stiles and he’s nothing if not faithful to a reputation of Never Shuts Up), but his voice might cut in and out a bit. He pretends not to notice or care.   
  
“Oh, you’re lycan. How interesting.” Stiles almost craves a cigarette, but not to smoke (because that’s gross and he really doesn’t need any help with the impending threat of death by disease in his medical records). He honestly just wants to, like, twirl it in his hands a bit, okay? It seems like the right moment. Do people even do that? Do people twirl cigarettes in their hands? Probably not. Oh well.  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
Stiles throws his hands up by his head in surrender. “Okay, okay, I get it. Can we go? I feel kind of weird about sitting around here. It’s like, three already, time to go, I’m getting antsy.”  
  
Derek backs up, laughing only with sarcasm, because he’s a dick. “You mean you get worse than this?”  
  
Scott laughs as well -- except genuinely, because he’s even more of a dick. “God, you have no idea, dude.” Yep, somehow so much more of a dick.

“Yeah, okay, I get it, I’m terrible, thanks so much. I’m so glad I could have such caring people in my life. Listen, Derek, are you done? Let’s go.”  
  
Derek doesn’t even bother to raise an eyebrow when he speaks, but he does cross his arms, because he is actually, actively trying to kill Stiles without even touching him. “Don’t tell me you were waiting for me, that’s just stupid.”

“What can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic.”  
  
Scott bursts into laughter from the couch, and Stiles joins him. When he turns back to Derek though, the guy is almost out the door already. “Hey, hey hey hey, no, nuh-uh. Hold on, you.” It honestly takes that much time for Derek to stop moving and look back around. “Just hold on a minute. I want a plan. I don’t want us all to walk out at once, you know, it’ll look suspicious.”

“Stiles, it’s three in the morning.” One day, Scott will stop being selectively oblivious to Stiles’ plans, and that will be the same day they collectively take over the world.  
  
“You never know, okay? How do you know there isn’t some party going on that some normal teenagers are coming home from right now or something?”

“Not everyone has a free day tomorrow--”  
  
“Just-- humour me. In fact, Scott, you go out first. Take the dufflebag, just go sit in the car. I’ll be out soon, I just gotta make sure this idiot remembers to actually close the door this time.”  
  
Scott looks hesitant for a bit, gaze shifting from Stiles to Derek before he nods and gets up, grabbing the dufflebag full of stolen shit off the floor beside him as he does.   
  
Once Scott is gone, Derek’s demeanor changes slightly. Stiles can’t pinpoint how, but he seems to relax, maybe. Stiles motions for him to sit down, and to his surprise, he actually does.  
  
“I’m only staying so we seem less suspicious.”  
  
Stiles rolls his eyes. Always so serious, isn’t he? Though, he is kind of a criminal, so maybe it kind of makes sense. Stiles is probably the statistical anomaly here, not Derek. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I won’t mistake you with someone who actually wants friends or anything, I wouldn’t tarnish your reputation like that.”  
  
There’s some awkward pause, and then Derek speaks again, which is kind of weird for Stiles, honestly. Especially with them, he’s usually the one breaking any silence and speaking first. “How long should we wait?”  
  
“Oh, dude, I don’t care. I honestly just kept you in here because I have a question to ask.”  
  
“What?” Derek sits straight up, moves like he’s going to rocket himself up from the couch, out the door and into Iceland in the next three nanoseconds.  
  
“Hey, man, chill. I don’t know why you’re so alarmed. It’s just a simple question.”

“I should be gone by now--”  
  
Stiles rights himself in his chair, leaning forward. “Wait, just… I was wondering--” Stiles looks up, surprised to see Derek has actually stopped, may actually be listening and/or even interested in what Stiles is about to ask, might even -- if Stiles is actually secretly the luckiest dude on earth -- say yes. “I was wondering if you’d-- Would you--” Stiles can see Derek tensing up out of the corner of his eye, and he knows he’ll find that hilarious later. “Can we hit the next house together?”  
  
“ _What_?”   
  
“I mean, it’s just that-- you know, I think we work well together. There must be some reason we keep bumping into each other like this, alright, and I’m willing to bet it’s because we’d be unstoppable as a team.” Stiles tries his best to reign his hands in, pulling them back into his lap and looking directly at Derek. “Just one. One house.”  
  
“No--”  
  
“Derek, listen. You’ve got the naturally-enhanced senses and I’ve got the transportation, research and comedic relief. I just want to do one job where I’ve got someone who has my back and isn’t constantly questioning my morally-ambiguous actions. Scott’s great and all, but he’s a: a rookie, b: nervous and c: apart from helping me with robbing houses, a dude with literally impeccable morals. Think about it, okay, dude, please?”  
  
He isn’t really expecting as much, but Derek sighs. “Fine, I’ll think about it.” Hear that? That’s the sound of confetti cannons going off inside Stiles’ head.   
  
“Okay, you know what? I’m just gonna write my number here, on this conveniently placed notepad, and… here. Take it. Scott’s probably getting like, pissed and-or worried, so we should probably go. Are you like, running home on all-fours or what?”  
  
Derek doesn’t even have to roll his eyes as he puts the piece of paper in a pocket in his bag. “It doesn’t matter, Stiles. Let’s go,” Derek says, as he’s walking to the door, and Stiles follows behind him. He has to keep true to at least part of what he said to Scott.   
  
“Look at that, using my name. You know just how to make me weak, don’t you?”  
  
Derek actually growls. Again.

It’s fucking hot.


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, Stiles and Scott are sitting in Stiles’ living room on the couch, playing video games when Stiles gets a text.

**Just one.**

If he’s being honest, Stiles might admit that -- after he actually understands what the vague text from an unknown number _means_ \-- he sits there staring at his phone with the most horribly-hidden smirk ever pulling at his cheeks for quite a while. But probably not. It’s just -- it’s a bit of a Christmas miracle. Which is... next week. Thanks, Saint Nick.

“Dude?”

“Mm.”

“Stiles.”

He peels his eyes away from the screen of his iPhone and shifts them over to Scott. “Huh? What?”

“I just killed you six times in a row. What’s up?” 

It’s not time to tell him about his plans with Derek yet, as bad as an idea that may be, so instead Stiles brings up something else that’s been on his mind for a while.

“Nothing, I just thought… When’s the last time we visited Allison?”

Scott’s face drops and he immediately goes silent. Stiles presses pause on their game and mutes the TV.

“Well, I saw her-- I mean, I just saw her… Almost a week ago.”

“Do you wanna--”

“Yeah. Yeah, when can we go?”

“Later today, buddy, hopefully. Who knows, maybe we can even meet Lydia there,” Stiles says, nudging Scott playfully with his elbow, trying to lighten the mood.

Scott huffs a laugh. “Come on dude, it’s over. You can’t fool me anymore. I know you don’t like Lydia as much as you say you do. C’mon, unpause the game, I want to shoot your brains out again.” Scott reaches over to do just that, but Stiles stops him.

“Dude, what? You can’t just say something like that and then not elaborate. What’s that even supposed to mean?” He leans over and grabs his controller back from Scott. “Seriously bro, explain yourself, that’s not fair.”

Scott sighs, putting his own controller down on the wooden coffee table in front of them as well. “I just mean that you’re obviously not as infatuated with her as you used to be. Or used to pretend to be, anyway.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve loved her since third grade, Scott, don’t underestimate my ability to hold on to a crush for literally ever.”

“Okay, okay, fine, whatever. I believe you.”

Stiles adjusts himself on his seat, crossing his legs and facing Scott. “No, no, Scotty, don’t hold back. Just tell me, dude.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not really -- you know -- love.” He looks like he isn’t going to say anything more, so Stiles motions for him to continue. He sighs again. “What you feel for Lydia -- I mean, I didn’t realize it until I met Allison, but it’s -- it’s not love, dude.”

Stiles is probably just about to burst into a ball of flames, of energy and Who The Fuck Are You To Tell People What Love Is, but Scott speaks again, slowly. 

“I know what you’re gonna say, dude, okay? You’re gonna get angry, tell me that I’m not the Seer of All and that you’re different and your love is different and then you’ll crack some joke that somehow relates to Star Wars. But before all that, just think about it. How do you feel when she walks into the room?”

“That doesn’t relate to anything!” Stiles exclaims, hands flailing, because it doesn’t. And he believes that for a full two minutes before he speaks again. “I-- You know-- I’m-- I feel like… I guess I feel like--”

“There’s a lot of ‘me’ in there, dude.”

“Hey, shut up. I’m trying to answer your dumb, pointless question.” Stiles crosses his arms like an upset child. “I don’t know how I feel when she enters a room, okay? Happy, I guess? I don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing all the time. I didn’t know I was going to be quizzed later.” He huffs, then pretends not to care when he asks, “Why, how am I supposed to feel?”

Scott shrugs. “I don’t know, man.” Wow, thanks so much. No really, Stiles is super glad he could be enlightened so greatly. “I’m no expert or anything, but when Allison walks into a room, I feel ecstatic, you know? Like, my arms kind of feel like jelly and my heart beats super fast.” He laughs at himself, and all of this is kind of adorable. “That’s so stupid of me to say.”

“I’m still marveling at the fact that you used the word ‘ecstatic,’ bro.”

“Thanks! I told you I’d fix myself up this year.” Scott doesn’t seem to recognize that -- while Stiles was being totally truthful and he’s more proud than anything else -- any other person on the planet would get angry at what Stiles just said to him.

“But nah, dude,” Stiles says, shrugging. “I don’t think that’s stupid of you to say. It’s honest. But I know I love Lydia. I always have. How could I love anyone else?” This time, when Stiles challenges what Scott is telling him, it’s not challenging Scott himself. He’s honestly just sure about his feelings. Like, almost absolutely sure. Ninety-nine percent. Well, maybe 90 percent. Or 75. Sixty percent doesn’t really sound as good.

“Well, maybe you love her, but you’re not _in love_ with her. You know? Like, I feel like what you’ve always said is ‘love’ for Lydia is more like obsession or… infatuation. Sorry, I don’t mean that in a mean way, I’m not judging. I’m just saying that’s more like what it seems to me.”

“You’re calling me obsessive here, now, dude. How am I supposed to take that kindly?”

“I don’t know! It’s-- I didn’t mean to judge you, I’m just saying that maybe it’s more admiration than anything else, you know? Especially now. If you loved her before, I don’t think you do anymore. Maybe you want to, but I don’t think you do.”

Stiles leans back on the couch, eyebrows raised. “When the hell did you become so observant, Scotty?”

“Oh, I don’t know. When I met Allison.”

“She can’t be your reason for everything, you know.”

“Why not?”

“Touche.”

They leave to go visit Allison in the afternoon later that day, a Friday, and Stiles is excited. It’s been way too long, frankly, and he’s ashamed of himself for not going to see her sooner. He knows Scott has -- a lot more than he lets on, seeing as Stiles doesn’t see him unless they’re robbing or playing video games-- but Stiles is still feels more than a little bit guilty that he hasn’t gone _with_ Scott enough recently. It’s one thing that he lets them have their alone time together, but it’s a whole different thing entirely if he doesn’t go at all. Allison’s his friend, too.

They arrive at her house somewhere around three, knock on the door and are let in by Chris, who nods solemnly to them. It’s a very specific nod.

“Hey, Allison,” Scott says softly, once they enter her room.

She responds like she always would, energetic, pleasant, warm. “Hey! Stiles, I’m glad you came!” When she makes a small motion with her hands, Stiles feels his face brighten up and he runs over to the bed, leaning down to hug her around all the wires. He kind of gets caught up in them, and then tries to untangle himself and only manages to fuck it up more. 

He starts saying sorry and keeps going until he can’t really breathe and he looks to Scott, whose eyes are wide and he looks like he’s about to go into cardiac arrest so Stiles decides to just keep going with the apologies until he just passes right on out because then maybe it’ll actually be okay.

“Hey, hey,” Allison exclaims, laughing. “It’s okay!” She helps him untangle all the wires from around him, not worried at all. Once he’s free, Stiles books it across the room, and Allison’s eyes follow him before shifting to Scott, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Would you two calm down? I’m fine, it’s just a bunch of cords.”

“Are you okay? Are you sure?” Scott walks slowly over to her, whipping only one fierce look back at Stiles while he does. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. So, what brings you guys here?”

“I just wanted to see you--”

“Hey!” Stiles calls, coming from the back. “I wanted to see you too!”

*

Stiles honestly just forgot to reply until the next day, when he and Scott are making breakfast -- funny, it’s bacon and eggs -- and he’s going through his texts. Scott sucks at cooking, though, so Stiles has to do all the work while Scott does things Stiles has strictly trained him to do, like grease the pan and crack eggs while Stiles is doing other shit. 

That means that Stiles can’t check his phone until they’re done cooking for the three of them -- Stiles’ father, who just got home from the nightshift included -- and they’re at the table, eating. Even then he can’t check it, because his father bans technology even at breakfast. That one text is on his mind through all of that, though, and he excuses himself to the bathroom halfway through eating just to reply. Although he thinks his father might know something is up, because only in serious, life-threatening emergencies does Stiles ever leave the table without finishing at least his own first plate.

But even once Stiles is in the main floor washroom, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, phone in hand and all ready to type up an apology and reply and possibly a suggestion, he can’t figure out what he should say. Like, at all. He types somewhere around five hundred different texts and deletes them all before he finally comes up with one he likes even the slightest bit. What can he say? He’s a nervous and particularly indecisive dude. It’s his parent’s fault; they created the gene pool here, okay, not him.

_sweet. when’s a good time to talk about a plan?_

Finally replying also reminds Stiles that he hasn’t put a name in for Derek’s phone number yet. He decides on **Felony Babe** , just for shits and giggles and the sake of Stiles’ first impression. Stiles is content with himself and his text for all of two seconds before he’s back to freaking out about whatever the hell he just sent, and _who even says sweet anymore,_ and _oh yeah, he does_. He shrugs it off, however, and goes to exit the bathroom, waiting anxiously for Derek’s reply. 

That very same reply, which actually comes nine hours later. 

**Now.**

Stiles lets out a sigh, because that’s just _so Derek_. He actually wonders for a while if the dude has ever sent a text over three words long. Maybe he has a record to keep up or something. On the plus side, Stiles is literally staring at the screen of his phone when the text comes in, so he manages to write a reply within five minutes, and refuses to give himself enough time to freak out about it. He doesn’t send it until ten minutes later, though. Can’t look too desperate, even if he is desperate.

He just really wants to work a job with Derek, alright? It makes sense. They’d make a fucking great team, frankly. Stiles could do all the work without having to constantly have his ears on high alert and everything.

_yeah sure I can do now. do you want me to call you?_

The text reads _delivered_ , and then his phone is ringing in his hands and it’s Derek, which is surprising for some reason. It seems odd that Derek does everyday human kinds of things like use the phone and play fucking Scrabble. In fact, all the messages between them have been iMessages, which is even weirder, because _Derek has an iPhone._

Stiles presses talk and brings the phone to his ear, walking out the back door and using crazy, huge, and indistinguishable hand gestures to try and communicate to his dad that he’ll only be a minute, and it’s nothing bad.

“Have you found a house yet?”

“Jesus, hello to you too, dude.” Of course Derek starts a conversation and immediately gets right to the point. Stiles huffs, because he can feel Derek getting physically uncomfortable with Stiles calling him “dude” again. Whatever, the guy can deal with it. “And no, I haven’t, because I figured that was something we should do together. You know, spot some houses for a couple weeks….” Stiles trails off, because a certain realization dawns on him.

If they spot houses together, Stiles is going to have to spend hours upon hours upon hours of time in a car with Derek -- hot, painful, insufferable, snarky, humorless, beautiful, _douchebag_ Derek -- alone. With almost nothing to do except sit in silence and watch the paint dry on the house of a rich person living on Main Street. 

Hell. Torture. His very own personal tenth circle, crafted by the Devil himself just for Stiles. Stiles has news for you, Dante, you have to update your inferno. 

“Fine. Are you doing anything important tomorrow?”

“Other than sleeping? No.”

“Good. Text me your address. I’ll be there at four.” Then, of course, with no regards to manners of any kind, Derek hangs up on him, leaving Stiles standing outside, in the cold, alone, staring at the phone in his hands like it just grew gills and started speaking whale. 

"Yeah, sure. Goodbye to you too, douchebag." Stiles immediately brings up his messages so he can send Derek a passive aggressive text. Or maybe straight-up aggressive text. 

_listen here asshole I'll give you my address but you could try being less of a dick next time_

**Address, Stiles.**

_you really like my name don’t you?_

**Not really. Address.**

_fine, jesus. pushy much._

Stiles sends his address in a text and presses send with more force than he thinks he ever has before when his dad peeks his out of the sliding door. 

"Who were you talking to, Son?"

"Just Scott. He wanted to know if I wanted to drive him to go get flowers for Allison tomorrow. Is that okay?" Stiles walks inside, thinking about how he’s more than a little uncomfortable with how comfortable he is with lying to his father these days. It's comes second-nature to him now, which is something he didn't think would ever happen. 

"Yes, but home before too late, okay?" His dad says, kind of softly. "How is she?"

"Good, Dad. She's good."

"Alright, that's great. I'm on a day shift tomorrow, so you're on your own."

"Cool." Stiles sits down calmly on the couch next to his father, but inside his head he's doing cartwheels. First of all, that means Derek won't have to awkwardly meet Stiles' father if they get caught. 

And second, it means he can drink like, fourteen gallons of Pepsi.

*

Exactly four o’clock (on the dot) in the afternoon the next day, Sunday, Derek sends him a text.

**Outside.**

Stiles rolls his eyes so hard they probably go completely backward and up into his head. Derek is so set on making sure he uses less than three words in all his texts that they’re no longer sentences. “Outside.” That’s not a sentence, alright, and Stiles refuses to take it seriously. 

_I’m sorry, is that supposed to mean something?_

He starts grabbing all his shit anyway, though, because there’s no sense dawdling and there’s absolutely no way he’s forgetting all the snacks he finally remembered to pack. Scott always did it for them, but he doesn’t-- Shit. Scott doesn’t even know Stiles is doing this. 

**Either get in or stay home.**

_wow, look at that! that’s at least double what you usually send. i’m so proud_

**Fine.**

Stiles hears a car start up outside -- and, if his ears are right, a particularly nice car -- so he grabs all his stuff and races out the door as quick as he can. 

Derek wasn’t bluffing, though, and his sleek black camaro is pulling out of the driveway as Stiles closes the door to his house. He kind of trips over his feet on the way, but Stiles takes off running after the car and eventually catches up.

However, when he gets there, Derek slows down without objection, coming to a stop and not saying anything in protest when Stiles moves to sit in the passenger seat. He thought he’d have to explain himself or try and persuade Derek to let him in, but it isn’t necessary.

“I’m sorry dude, but ‘outside’ isn’t a sentence. Have you ever tried typing a real text, like, ever?”

“That was a real text.”

“Nope, not even a little.”

“You’re trying to tell me,” Derek says, in that voice, that one goddamn voice, “that your complete and utter disregard for all laws of written English in text is better than my short, concise and to-the-point texts?”

“First of all, _yes,_ second of all, I can’t believe we’re arguing over _texts,_ and third of all, I think that’s the longest string of words I’ve ever heard you say. By golly, Jim, it’s a miracle.” Stiles starts laughing at himself, digging around in his bag for snacks while he does. He’s not sure, but he thinks his butt might be abnormally warm. Nope, it definitely feels like he just peed his pants, there’s no doubt -- Derek’s car has _seat warmers._

“I don’t think that’s even a real quote from anything.”

“It’s a quote from me, live with it. They must have said it at least once in Star Trek, come on.”

They enter a slightly above-decent neighbourhood less than half an hour later, starting to cruise along the streets. They find a perfect house, a couple streets down, and park down the street adjacent to it. Stiles pulls out a book and some snacks from his backpack, to look busy, and Derek steps out of the car, going for a walk around the area.

By the time Derek comes back, three people have passed by the car while Stiles was waiting, and he politely smiled and nodded at all three of them, just for good measure. 

“Any issues?” Derek asks, climbing back into the car.

“None, this one’s good. You?” 

“No.” 

He starts up the car again, and Stiles breaks the silence. “So, what area next?”

Derek pauses, confused. “I’m taking you home.”

Stiles laughs in response, because that is so not the way to do this. “Nah, dude. We’re not done yet. We found a good mark, and I wrote the address down so we don’t forget it, but we’re not done yet. We can keep looking, find a couple more that fit the bill. It’s good to have back ups in case this one flops, you know? Or maybe a nice selection of choice pathetic rich guy houses.”

He’ll admit it: he’s waiting for Derek to protest. Instead, the dude nods just slightly, taking and almost looking at Stiles for suggestions, which is surprising.

“There’s a really nice neighbourhood up by Gold River?”

Derek raises his eyebrows, and it shouldn’t be fair that he can communicate so easily without saying a word.

“Scott and I checked it out a couple months ago,” Derek’s already shaking his head, ready to protest, but Stiles plows on. “We didn’t hit any houses there yet, I promise, okay? It’s nice, it’s pretentious, the residents are all douches and it’s just our type -- the only problem was that we couldn’t find a suitable house to hit.”

“Gold River is left on Bree?”

“Yeah, just up here. Then you take Carlton up to Hemingway. I’ll direct you from there.”

They repeat the same routine two more times in two more neighbourhoods before finally heading home. Conversation is scarce, mostly because half the time in this particular excursion is spent separated, checking out houses in different ways and away from each other, while the other half is spent in the car. And Stiles really, really, _really_ doesn’t want to get on Derek’s bad side while they’re driving. In an enclosed metal machine. Talk about putting a new meaning to the words ‘vehicular manslaughter.’

In one particular instance, Stiles is pleading for Derek to let him drive because he knows the way better, damn it, and of course Derek isn’t having any of it, so Stiles kind of maybe insults him, and Derek kind of maybe misses the turn, so Stiles kind of maybe yells at him, makes some dumb comment about Derek’s poor judgement of character, and Derek kind of maybe pulls over to the side of the road so he can grab both of Stiles’ flailing arms and kind of maybe grip them until they both go a little red. 

“Shut. Up,” Derek bites, barks, and then they keep going like nothing happened. Derek kind of looks guilty as hell afterwards, and tenses up for the rest of the drive with absolutely no breaks whatsoever to relax, and eventually, he apologizes. Quietly and begrudgingly, but he apologizes, and it’s actually more sincere than it sounds. In fact, he actually asks Stiles if he’s okay, which is either weird or kind or both.

By the time Derek drops Stiles back off at his house, it’s eight in the evening and they’re pretty much silent. Stiles knows his father isn’t getting back until somewhere around quarter after ten, so he still has time to do a bit of homework and set up in front of the TV if he wants. 

Stiles ducks his head back into the car after getting out to ask Derek one last annoying question. The car’s still running, Derek’s hands gripping the wheel, ready to go as soon as Stiles is out of his way. “So… uh, we checked out like, three houses today. When do you wanna check up on them next? I’m good whenever, but --”

“Next week,” Derek states, and it’s not a question, even though it should be. At least he’s actually making eye contact with this Stiles by this point.

“Uh, yeah, sure. Saturday? My dad has a night shift over the Friday night so--”

“Saturday.” Derek nods, probably just another hint to Stiles that they’re done now. 

“Goodnight, Derek. Merry Christmas.” Honestly, Stiles is just playing with him. Poking at him, pushing at his buttons, because maybe it’s fun, okay?

Derek huffs out a breath, looking forward again and preparing to back up out the driveway. “ _Goodnight,_ Stiles. And Merry Christmas.” He sounds annoyed, and Stiles knows his job is done. One day he’ll be amused instead and that will be the day that Stiles truly wins. 

When he goes inside, Stiles immediately starts worrying about Scott. He never said anything about going out, let alone with Derek, about doing a duo-mission with someone that isn’t Scott, or about robbing another house at all. He feels more than a little guilty about it, so he calls.

“Stiles? What’s up, dude? You’re not in jail, are you?” The last bit is punctuated with Scott’s laugh. He says it lightly, which is good, because Stiles was legitimately worried that Scott was legitimately worried. 

“No, no, I’m good. No worries there. I’m telling you, man, we’re never getting caught. I’m a fucking genius.” 

“Right,” Scott replies sarcastically. “Really, what’s up?”

“Dude,” Stiles starts, because that’s how he starts everything. “Nothing’s up! I know we don’t really do phone calls, but you don’t have to sound so surprised and worried when I want to talk to you. That’s what normal friends do. They don’t automatically assume something’s up or wrong because they want to talk, okay? That’s just--”

“You’re rambling, bro, that’s your tell. What’s actually up?”

Stiles sighs, because if there’s anyone he underestimated in the area of Skill Level of Detecting Stiles’ Lies, it’s Scott. “I’ve just-- I didn’t tell you, and not because I didn’t want to, okay, because I did! I just forgot. I’m human, I make mistakes, it’s fine! So did Adam and Eve, okay, they fucked shit up big time. I am nothing compared to--”

“Stiles!”

“Right, sorry. I just got back from a ride with… uh, Derek.”

“ _What?_ ” Scott kind of... whisper-yells, and Stiles makes a face that can’t accurately be portrayed back to Scott without a video call. “Where? Why, what did you guys do?”

“Out. Like, you know… we went Out. To spot.”

“OH!” And then Scott starts laughing. Really laughing.

“Uh, dude?”

Scott keeps laughing.

“Dude, seriously? What? Please don’t tell me this is what you’re like when you’re really, really, really angry. I’ve only seen you like, moderately angry and that was a much different experience.” 

After a while, Scott composes himself enough to speak. “I’m sorry, I was just preparing for a much different answer.”

“What?”

“Don’t even ask, man. Please just don’t ask.”

“Fine. But back to the real problem, Scott, I planned this behind your back, with the dude that I didn’t tell you about until you had to meet him awkwardly in a house we were both robbing!”

“Oh,” Scott says, laughing again, though only a little. “I don’t really care, dude. We both know I’m not really good at the whole thing anyway. If you two wanna team up or whatever, that’s fine. Just don’t expect me to pay your bail if you ever get caught.”

Stiles pauses for a bit, feels like he should argue for Scott, because he was expecting an argument in there somewhere, but instead he just takes this for what it is: a win. “Yeah, okay. Sure. I’ll still use all the profit the way I said we would, dude, I promise. Okay?”

“You’re allowed to use some of it on yourself, too, man, I’m not a dictator. You deserve to treat yourself too!”

Stiles laughs. “Okay, Scott. Whatever you say, buddy. I’m going out with him again Saturday, that cool with you? No alternate plans?”

“Nah, I’ll probably be at Allison’s. Gotta give her a gift and stuff.”

“As per usual. Rad. Then I guess I’ll see you later in the break. We’ll do another gaming session or something later this week, yeah?”

“Sure. See ya, Stiles.”

“Bye, Scott.”

A couple days later, on Wednesday, which is actually Christmas Eve, Stiles decides to send Derek a text. Just for fun. The dude probably needs a few light-hearted moments in his life, and who else is going to give them if not Stiles? It’s his specialty, really. 

He decides to send a disgustingly simple pun at first, with a picture attached. He searches for hours -- well, more like ten minutes -- to find one that he thinks Derek might at least appreciate objectively, but all he gets back (hours later) is,

**That’s painful.**

Which is just plain rude, so Stiles shoots something back.

_yeah well your face is painful_

**Good one.**

Stiles bursts out into a fit of laughter then and there, because he was so close to texting “thanks” back before he realized it’s drenched in sarcasm. He thinks maybe he’s not giving Derek enough credit. That one text is also the fastest Derek has ever replied to him.

_did you just use sarcasm against me?_

**You should consider being a detective.**

_oh it’s on._

That’s actually the end of their conversation, but Stiles sets up a scoreboard in his head for future reference.

Derek: 1.  
Stiles: 0.

*

The next Saturday, Derek texts him from the driveway. If he had let Stiles finish what he was saying the last time, he would have known that Stiles’ dad had a night shift the night before, and would literally be sleeping until at least seven at night, at which point Stiles would have to be home to make him dinner so he’s not stuck ordering in and essentially shooting his cholesterol levels through the roof.

It’s two when Derek arrives, but he never gave Stiles a time when he basically dismissed him a week ago, so he’s been ready to get up and leave since about noon. Just in case, so they don’t have an incident like last time. Honestly, Stiles doesn’t think his body can take it. Maybe one day he’ll apologize publicly for not having much muscle mass in his legs, because at this point he seems to need it for everything.

“Alright, alright,” Stiles says, climbing into the car. “Let’s go.” 

Derek puts the Camaro into reverse right on cue, and they set their track for the first house. The drive is pretty much silent, apart from the radio that Stiles tries to put on, twice, and Derek just slaps his hand away, twice. Touchy.

They roll up to the first neighbourhood they checked out the week before, and Stiles (at least) is worried when they pull around a few streets and can’t find the house they looked at before. Theyre just about to give up, admit defeat and recognize that their targets must have come back from vacation when Stiles looks up and realizes they’re on the wrong street. 

Turns out that once they’re actually where they’re supposed to be, their house is, in fact, still vacant. Derek opts to stay in the car this time, acting as if he’s on the phone, and maybe he actually is calling someone, Stiles honestly has no freakin’ idea. All he knows is that Derek’s suddenly got his phone pressed to his ear and he’s talking as if there’s someone on the other end whether there is or not and he’s wordlessly motioning for Stiles to _get the hell out of the car_ which could be because of suspicion or because of the phone call, so Stiles decides to just forget it and go. 

He walks around the blocks, kicking rocks, hands in his pockets, music in his ears. He walks slowly, calmly, because it’s less suspicious, and he pointedly keeps his eyes on the ground and not on the houses. He gets stopped by a woman walking towards him on the sidewalk though. Thankfully, the icy winds of December have made his cheeks red and his eyes watery, and he plays that up just enough when she confronts him.

“Excuse me, young man. Do you live around here?” She seems around her late twenties to early thirties, and Stiles is legitimately unsure whether she suspects anything of him or not, so he wings it.

“No, ma’am. I’m just, uh--” He adds in a well-placed sniffle. “I’m on a walk. I live on Silver Crescent.” The greatest thing about all this is that because he’s been around here both with Scott and Derek multiple times, he knows the surrounding neighbourhoods as well. Silver Crescent is a perfect street, far enough away that locals won’t know every kid who lives there, but close enough to be walking distance. _Long_ walking distance.

“Oh? On a walk? Really.” The woman, blonde, of pleasant physique, sounds equally doubtful as she does interested. It’s frustrating. Stiles is usually at least moderately good at reading people, but this chick is just a series of giant, bold question marks. She could be challenging him or flirting with him, he really doesn’t know.

Stiles brings his arm up so he can wipe at his eyes with his palm before running it through his hair and looking away, at the ground. “Yeah, um.. My dad, he uh-- I should really be going, I’m sorry.” He deserves a fucking oscar for this one.

“Are you alright?”

At least this time he can actually tell she sounds concerned. “Yeah, my dad’s just… you know. He got angry, and my mom, she-- she just wanted me out of the way, you know?” His hand comes up to rub at his nose, just to make it more real. “It’s okay. I’m heading back to check on everything.”

She looks at him for a moment, like she’s surveying a piece of meat, and he shivers involuntarily. The woman even tips her head a little bit, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes before she seems to make a decision. “You know what? Why don’t you just come to my place? You can warm up, I’ll make you some hot chocolate, then I’ll drive you back to your house. How’s that?”

Stiles wants to peel his skin off, that’s how that is. He just feels… gross. Uncomfortable. Squirmy. And he made a decision a while ago to trust his gut. “Uh, no thanks. I think I’m just gonna take the walk to cool off. I don’t want my dad to see me -- well. Thank you anyway, but I’m good.”

The woman’s facial expression doesn’t change at all, but her eyes somehow lose all life and it’s probably the fucking creepiest thing Stiles has ever seen in his entire life. _Including_ the vaguely-pedophilic clown at his eighth birthday party. But the expression is gone in a second, and she’s back to being a regular human being. 

“Alright, one last chance. Warm fire, food, drive home? Just say yes, sweetie, I’m here to help.” The lady extends her arm to hold on to Stiles’ shoulder, and it’s supposed to be seen as friendly but instead it feels like an electric shock.

He rips his shoulder back, taking a step away. “Listen, lady, I said I’m fine. If you touch me again, the cops will be here before you blink. Got it? Now let me pass.”

The woman huffs. “Fine.” She sticks her nose up and walks away, blonde hair blowing in the wind, and Stiles feels a weight lift off his shoulders.


	3. Chapter 3

He finally walks back to the car, only to see Derek putting down his phone and staring directly at Stiles, anger in his eyes. Always melodramatic, that one. It’s almost as if Derek doesn’t even blink, glaring at him, which might actually be true. If Stiles is honest, he doesn’t even know if werewolves need to blink.

Stiles swings himself into the car, immediately turning to Derek. “Do you blink?”

Derek, surely enough, blinks. Except like, with confusion, if that’s possible. He still looks pissed, though. “What?”

“Do werewolves blink? You know, I was just thinking that I wasn’t really sure, and then you were glaring at me all the way to the car and I’m at least ninety-eight percent sure you didn’t blink once, so I was just asking--”

“Of course we blink,” Derek interjects, rolling his eyes but yet again, still angry. “Now shut up. Do you know how long you were gone for?”

Stiles tries to keep a straight face, keep it serious, but it’s really, really, really hard. Not possible. He breaks out into a smile, because Derek /sounds like a mom/. “Uh, ten minutes?” Stiles tries, grimacing a little.

“Yeah, try forty-five. What the hell were you thinking? What were you doing out there? Someone could have gotten suspicious.” Derek clenches his jaw and all Stiles can focus on is the movement of his stubble and how it perfectly outlines Derek’s cheekbones and jawline.

“I think someone did--”

_“What?”_

“--But I handled it! It’s fine,” Stiles assures him, determinedly _not_ thinking about the woman or how absolutely, painfully uncomfortable she made him feel. “We’re good. She probably thinks I’m some Model Citizen who calls the cops on graffiti artists and walks the neighbourhood dogs for free, alright? Just chill. You’re always so tense.” Stiles playfully and particularly lightly sends a punch at Derek’s shoulder, if only to prove his point, and his hand bounces right back off.

Derek’s head snaps to look at him, and Stiles can’t read his expression at all.

Even just a couple seconds of silent eye-contact gets to be too much for Stiles, so he looks away and starts speaking again. Honestly, he doesn’t even have any idea what the hell he’s talking about. Literally, he can’t hear a thing he’s saying.

Derek cuts him off anyway. “Shh.” It’s sharp, and Derek’s head isn’t facing him anymore, instead turned to look out his now open window. Stiles plows on, because if he stops he might do something stupid, so Derek hushes him again, whipping a sharp eye in his direction before looking back out onto the road. When Stiles continues once more, Derek’s arm strikes out in front of Stiles’ chest, successfully stunning him into silence with one more, “Shut _up_ , Stiles.”

So Stiles shuts up. Maybe if the dude had asked nicely he’d be more inclined to do so more quickly, but Derek doesn’t work that way and truthfully, neither does Stiles.

Not two seconds later, Derek turns back toward Stiles and seems to hesitate for a second before leaning over to shove his nose at Stiles shoulders. And yeah, he might let out a little shriek, because it caught him off guard, okay, but it’s a manly shriek. He holds his breath too, completely unintentionally, and feels his ribs burn when Derek moves closer to his neck and chest.

“Derek, what are you doing?” Stiles asks finally, voice strained.

After straightening up and looking around for a few moments, only barely leaning out of Stiles’ personal space, Derek speaks. “Stiles, what did the person who confronted you look like?”

Alright, so it’s a bit of an odd question to be so serious about. Maybe Stiles chuckles a bit, but it’s not his fault, okay? It totally doesn’t merit the death-stare Derek shoots at him at the slightest of noises. Stiles stops anyway, though. 

“Uh, she was white, disgustingly seductive, blonde, made my skin crawl, probably 5’5”, maybe 5’6”? Seemed very pleasant until she was very not.”

And then, Derek throws the car into drive and speeds away, without even a glance in Stiles’ direction, let alone a single word of explanation. He speeds until they come to a decent place to slow down, which actually turns out to be the neighbourhood of their next hit. Stiles thinks, for a second, that everything might be okay now, less tense and alarming, but of course not. Derek is still gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles like it personally offended him, and even though they’re parked on the side of the street and should get out before they start looking suspicious, Derek doesn’t move.

“Dude, come on.” He doesn’t move, so Stiles tries again. “Seriously, Derek, we can’t look suspicious. We have to go.”

Slowly, Derek turns his head to finally look at Stiles. His eyes are blank and his jaw is clenched.

On any other day, Stiles would gladly sit there and listen to what Derek had to say, but they really, really don’t have the time for that right now, so Stiles whips around and throws himself out of the passenger seat, walks around to the driver’s side door and yanks it open. Derek’s eyebrows finally show some emotion (shock, admittedly, but Stiles will take it) when Stiles holds his hand out to him.

“Let’s go for a walk.” There’s a soft rumble, the start of a growl, and Derek’s top lip starts to pull up to bare his teeth. “Dude, I don’t have time for this, okay, just put away the fangs. We need to blend in.” Derek’s face goes back to normal, though he still looks reluctant, and he brushes Stiles’ hand out of the way and gets out of the car himself.

They start to walk together, further into the more popular part of the neighbourhood, where more residents seem to be out with their children or significant others or walking dogs. Truthfully, Stiles finds it hilarious when household pups on the street are scared of Derek. He must give off some sort of smell or something, because they always walk away with their head down and their tail between their legs. It would probably be sad if Stiles didn’t know it was probably just a Pecking Order thing. Derek doesn’t even seem to notice, though.

After a while of weaving their way through the relatively crowded and pleasantly buzzing neighbourhood, they get stopped by an old woman. She seems kind, wispy grey hair blowing softly with the wind, laugh-lines the most prominent of her wrinkles.

“Excuse me, young man,” She says, directly to Stiles, lightly touching his wrist as they walk by. She probably picks him because he’s closest, but he stops to talk to her anyway and he senses Derek stop behind him as well. “I just wanted to say that you and your partner look very happy. I’m glad your generation still knows how to enjoy the outdoors and be in love.” She smiles, and it reaches her eyes. She glows with genuine happiness for them, nods to him and to Derek, and Stiles’ chest hurts a lot. “You two have a lovely day, now.” Then she’s off and walking down the rest of the street with her old fluffy white dog, humming to herself. She’s adorable, honestly.

It finally comes to Stiles, then, that she said the word ‘love,’ and the word ‘partner,’ (the latter of which isn’t necessarily _untrue_ but also isn’t true the way she meant it), probably in relation to him and Derek. He calls back as she’s walking away, “Thank you, but we’re not--” though she doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s speaking. He turns around to look at Derek, who is -- yep, who is completely blatantly staring Stiles down.

“Okay, dude, I get that you’re the score here and I am painfully below your league, but you don’t have to look that upset someone thought we were a couple. That’s just plain insulting,” Stiles mostly jokes, but he turns on his heel and starts walking toward the mark so he doesn’t shove his foot even farther down his throat.

“Stiles, I don’t--”

“Wait!” Stiles yells, quite loudly, and a few of the heads around the block turn in their direction. Stiles knows he has to follow through, and uses that as a lead-in to his idea. “That little old lady just gave me a plan.” He carefully voices that part much quieter, making it look like it’s something else totally exciting so that any onlookers won’t be suspicious. “You’re going to hate it, and don’t think it’s me coming on to you or anything, okay?”

“What are you even talking about?”

“Well, we gotta look inconspicuous, right? Blend in and whatever?”

Derek looks a little shifty. “Uh, yeah.”

Stiles tries his best to attack it from a different angle. “Derek, did you know that public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable?”

“Stiles…” Is all Derek responds with, in some sort of warning tone as if he’s about to chastise.

“Jesus, Derek, just trust me on this one.” Stiles walks back toward where Derek has stood, unmoving. He can clearly see the larger dude tense up, but Stiles ignores him. He stands beside Derek, intertwining their fingers and starting to walk around the neighbourhood. He knows Derek won’t drop all quarrel and walk with him immediately, so he kind of tugs a little bit, but soon they’re walking down the streets of the beautiful neighbourhood they’re about to rob, _holding hands_.

Derek’s hands are… well. Stiles is trying his best to keep his cool here, okay? They’re just nice hands. They’re strong, they’re warm, and after a while (once Derek sees the light that is Stiles’ brilliant plan), firm and confident. If Stiles’ willpower was any worse (a truly difficult thing to imagine), he’d probably be squeezing Derek’s hand even harder than he already is, maybe dragging him by it back into the car to make out with him forever.

The good news is, Stiles’ level of willpower is marginally better than that.

However, because they’re both dudes, holding hands doesn’t really have the intended effect. It probably would, had they picked a more homophobic neighbourhood, but instead this one apparently takes pride in its acceptance. One or two more people approach them, but Derek completely refuses to speak at all whatsoever, so Stiles carries most of the conversations, improvising as he goes. Other than that, half of the people they see ignore them, and the other half either stares, or sneaks what they obviously think are unnoticed glances.

Stiles is abundantly confident, though, that whatever the reaction of the people in the neighbourhood, they won’t be suspected.

After walking for a little while in a particularly crowded area near a park, Stiles stops, tugging softly on Derek’s hand to tell him to stop as well. He stares at the house in front of them, two streets away from their mark. “Could you imagine living in this house? We could fix up the garden a little, put a pool and a hot tub in the back, maybe a little gazebo.” He can feel eyes on them, which is actually a good thing.

Derek, for the first time probably ever, catches on right away, a soft laugh falling from his mouth. “Yeah, after we win the lottery.”

Stiles lightly bumps their shoulders, tries to pretend he doesn’t feel Derek’s words releasing butterflies into his ribcage. “Come on, Derek, just imagine with me for a second here.”

“Fine,” He drawls, with absolutely no malice, and Stiles can see his eyes sweeping the house. He can also see, out of his peripheral vision, a couple people staring at them with pleasant grins. “It is right across from a park. For, you know, a dog. Or kids.”

Stiles uses his free hand to pinch his thigh. This can’t be real, there’s no way. He must be dreaming or something.

Derek’s hand squeezes a little, and it doesn’t feel intentional -- maybe just a subconscious thing, but it makes Stiles heart clench. Stiles smiles softly, says, “C’mon, I wanna check out the rest of the neighbourhood,” and pulls at Derek to keep walking. They keep the show up though, and after a while, Derek’s thumb starts rubbing circles into Stiles’ hand. _Rubbing fucking circles_. That’s just not fair.

Stiles decides that he’s not only dreaming but definitely hallucinating, he’s fucking crazy or he got slipped drugs sometime in the last ten minutes, because this cannot be actually happening.

They continue walking, not because they think they need to or anything, but solely because they forget they’ve got other shit to do. But, eventually, they make their way back to Derek’s pretentious car, and they move onto the last neighbourhood.

It’s an unspoken agreement that they continue the act with this area as well. Stiles doesn’t know when it happened or whether it was his idea or Derek’s but soon they’re down the street from their mark, mirroring their previous performance and even improving it. They don’t get approached this time, but that’s just as well anyway. Stiles’ palm is sweaty in Derek’s and his ribs are probably breaking with the pounding of his heart against his chest, but he ignores both of those things and Derek seems to as well.

Derek is almost… eager. Stiles thinks maybe the dude is missing someone who left him and is imagining their hand instead of his own, but decides to forget about it. He should savour the moment wherein someone way out of his league is seen being couple-y with him for as long as possible and not waste any of it on worrying whether aforementioned someone is on the same page as him. Take it for face value or something.

“We should go back.”

“I could rhyme that with ‘hit the road, Jack,’ but I’m not going to,” is the only thing Stiles can come up with in response that isn’t “Noooooo, not yet.”

“You could, if you were craving claw-shaped scars.”

Stiles drops his hand and stops walking. “Do you have any fun? Like, ever?”

Derek stops as well, turning only his head. “Of course not,” he spits, deadpan, and Stiles has never been more unsure of anyone’s use of sarcasm, ever.

What surprises him the most, though, is that Derek waits for Stiles to catch up, and instinctively grabs his hand once again. Neither of them say a word on the subject.

They eventually get back to the car, and Stiles is all buckled up (as Derek requires him to be, for whatever reason) and ready to go, but Derek doesn’t start the engine. “I think we should narrow the list down soon.”

“Yeah, no, that’s a good idea. In fact, today. It’s our second trip round the areas, that’s usually when Scott and I pick one or two to focus on. Although with your unrelenting grumpy state, I’m going to go right ahead and assume you don’t want me at your house, and you’ve already been to mine, so let’s just go there.”

Halfway through this apparently all-too-easy plan, Stiles remembers his father. Who might be waking up soon. Who might come downstairs to his son and a strange older man going over robbery plans. Who might never let Stiles out of the house again, ever, for the rest of his life.

“So, about the whole Let’s Plot Our Outrageously Criminal Activities At Stiles’ House thing -- we have to go somewhere else.”  
  
“What.”

“You know, I think that’s supposed to be a question, but I’m not really sure because normally people do something like, I don't know, make it sound like a question.”

Derek stops at a red light. “Stiles.”

“I just remembered my dad is usually waking up after a night shift in, like,” -- he glances at the dashboard clock -- “half an hour? He doesn’t really care that I’m out, I can just tell him I’m at Scott’s, but talking about thievery and other criminalistic activities with a strange man very obviously older than me might not be a great scene for my father to wake up to.”

Derek doesn’t move.

“Dude, the light’s green.” Jolt. “So, do you have anywhere we can go? I mean, we could conference in the woods like freaky teenagers getting it on in the darkness of the Beacon Hills Reserve, it’s not like we’re gonna be there long anyway, but I would not personally give it my vote of recommendation. We’ll probably die, actually, I don’t know where you live but around those woods, there’s this giant lycan family and I’m at least 95% sure _all_ of it is their territory. If they found us there we’d pretty much--”

“Mine.”

“What? Oh, we’re gonna go to your house? Alright, okay, cool. Unexpected, but cool. Maybe I had you pegged wrong. I definitely didn’t think you’d let me into your brood-cave, but I am not complaining --”

“Stiles, shut up.”

“Fine.”

Twenty minutes later, they’re rolling into Beacon Hills. Admittedly, Stiles is more than a little confused. Sure, Derek never _confirmed_ that they’d be going to his house, but Stiles already told Derek his house is unavailable, and strongly advised against the woods forever drenched in territorial blood-pee, so there’s really no reason for them to be coming here.

Stiles starts a couple aborted half-sentences as Derek passes the turn off for his house on the other side of town before realizing that he must have decided on the ill-advised and well-claimed dark woodland death-trap, ignoring Stiles completely. In fact, he must really have a death wish because he turns onto the very gravel path that leads to the house of the aforementioned huge, territorial lycan family, and --

Yup. Derek is definitely part of the aforementioned huge, territorial lycan family. Suddenly a lot of things make sense.

“You live here, don’t you?” Stiles says, as they’re nearing the giant Hale house.

“Yes.”

“Hale. Your name is Derek _Hale._ ”

“Yes.” He sounds almost _smug_ , which is simultaneously aggravating and also kind of a win?

“And I have probably insulted your family a grand total of at least eight times today.”

“Pretty much.”

“Great.” Stiles is too busy staring up at the mansion in front of him to actually direct it at Derek. “Are they home?”

“Most of them.”

“Fantastic.”

*  
  
As far as plotting illegal schemes go, this is probably the weirdest situation Stiles has ever experienced. The only thing that can come remotely close is when Scott was over last month and they talked about burglary skills while playing fucking Mario Kart. But meeting Derek’s family, being fed absolutely _delicious_ snacks, and having group conversations on how not to get arrested? It trumps everything.

Though, Stiles did need to update their methods. Apparently this family of professional thieves has only been hitting one house at a time. Ridiculous.

“These are really good, Mrs. Hale,” Stiles hums, and although his words are polite he does kind of say them while shoving another tiny sandwich into his mouth.

“Oh, Talia, please,” she replies, and it’s so _nice_ and so _weird_. “Now, I’d say the house in Gold River should be discarded. There’s a police station about five blocks away, and if they’re so close they’re not going to go easy. It’d be easier to hit in the summer.

No one objects, so Derek throws the picture of the house into the discard pile. Over the course of the two days they hit about six neighbourhoods, so there’s still about five pictures in the pile to choose from.

Derek’s younger sister (who Stiles actually already knew through school), Cora, then pipes up. “Take out the Brampton one, too. That’s a Neighbourhood Watch area, and I know a kid from that street. They take it super seriously, they’ll definitely see you guys going in and you’ll be done for.”

“Thanks for all the faith.”

“It’s a warning, Derek. But no, fine. Take the house. I’m not bailing you out of jail.”

Talia breaks in with “Kids,” and that’s all she has to say before both of them are apologizing.

It’s really fucking weird. Even more weird than meeting Derek’s family, probably, is seeing him be, like, _domestic_. He’s more playful than menacing when snarking at his sister, he’s eating tiny little hand sandwiches that his mother made him, and he’s sitting on the floor. _Cross-legged_. It’s just a bit of a punch to the gut, knowing that Derek is a real human being with a family and not just some broody, hermit caveman-werewolf. It’s making Stiles ache, just a little bit, to see Derek smile.

It’s a while later before a woman comes walking down the stairs. Everyone in the family greets her seemingly as usual, and then Talia introduces her to Stiles as Laura.

Stiles tries very, very hard not to pointedly stare at the burn scars covering her body, specifically her face and the gash on her neck. They’re very obviously at least a couple years old.

“You can look, Stiles, it’s okay.” She floats down the stairs toward the rest of them, and everyone except for Stiles is completely unphased. “I’m not ashamed of them.”

“I’m sorry--” Laura waves her hand, both a ‘don’t be’ and a ‘continue.’ “I have to ask.” She nods again, probably for good measure. “Lycan don’t scar easily, right? It has to be made by an alpha or something with wolfsbane.”

“That’s right. You know,” She says, looking around the room, eyes landing on Derek with a mischievous look before returning to Stiles. “If you promise to stay for dinner, I’ll tell you how I got them.”

Stiles isn’t sure if it’s his curiosity or the quiet groan Derek lets out that makes more him excited to stay.

In the end, Stiles does stay for dinner, because its fun and cute and bugs Derek. They end up seated around a long, wooden dining room table complete with at least thirteen chairs, although only ten of them are filled tonight.

Ten, after Derek's uncle Peter shows up with Talia's husband, explaining that Peter's wife and kids are out at a movie for the one he calls Hannah's birthday.

They bicker like any family, except there's a ton of them. Stiles is a little overwhelmed, honestly, because it's typically just him and his dad for dinner every night, and the only time he's really experienced this number of people at one table is his mother's funeral, when all the European relatives showed up to sob into her original homemade pierogi recipe.

It dawns on him about halfway through his spaghetti that he’s eating dinner with the family of the guy he met because they were robbing the same house, three times.

He’s well aware it’s fucking nuts. Like, the crazy story of a 93-year-old grandmother with dementia, souped up on eleven different types of pills and a bottle of wine (also a weird sight -- side note: never volunteer at a nursing home if you’re not prepared for an assload of ‘what the fuck’ and partially digested food everywhere). But he can’t help thinking it’s some weird twist of the red string of fate, or whatever.

“Alright, I think it’s probably time for me to make like a baby and head out, but it’s been wonderful,” Stiles declares, already grabbing his coat from the couch after helping clean up from dinner. “Talia, your cooking is supreme. To everything.”

She gives a soft laugh and an “Oh please,” in response.

“It was nice meeting you all, and I guess I’ll see you when I see you? I’m sure Derek will update you all on how checking the Rougeville house goes, so I’m out.” In fact, his foot is literally out the door that Derek -- holy fuck -- is holding open for him. What a _gentleman_. “Bye everyone!” The chorus of goodbyes in response is truly heartwarming. How did such a beautiful family create such a grumpy wet dog?  
  
Stiles won’t lie to himself. Derek may be a grumpy wet dog, but he’s a _beautiful_ grumpy wet dog who sits crosslegged on his living room floor eating hand sandwiches and bickering with his sisters and he _smiles_? 

Of course, that’s when Stiles nearly faceplants down the porch steps. He’s in trouble.  
  
And then Derek drives Stiles home, and, because the sense of humour upstairs is terribly askew, Derek is in a good mood. Which is very bad, because it means he’s like, smiling and talking and weird shit that he doesn’t normally direct nicely in Stiles’ direction.   
  
Honestly, he thought Derek would be bitter after Stiles decided to stay for dinner as invited (and also not invited). The whole territory and pack thing, right? But instead, Stiles can tell Derek just tried to hold back a laugh at one of Stiles’ stupid-ass jokes. Stiles can see it already, tomorrow’s front page headline: Total Anarchy, Cats and Dogs Living Together, Pigs Sprouting Wings, Is That A Demon Throwing Snowballs in Hell?

See, Stiles thought he had Derek all mapped out. Grumpy, angry, filled with nothing but regret and dry humour at the expense of others, royally fucked up, probably colossally wronged at least once in his life by someone he cared about, perpetually rude.  
  
And so when Derek walks Stiles to his door, and then says “It was good, tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow,” it kind of makes sense that Stiles basically melts. He tries extremely hard to ignore the “I had fun, can I see you again tomorrow?” date parallel.

To be frank, Stiles was actually getting used to having a strictly-physical attraction to a textbook Emotionally Unavailable Babe, but this? This he was unprepared for. He didn’t sign up for weak knees and butterflies at this asshole giving him a tiny wave as he’s backing out of the driveway. There should have been some kind of warning. Is there a manual? An exit sign? Anyone? Beuller? Fine.  
  
Man, is he in big trouble.

 _Literally,_ Stiles realizes, as he walks in the door to his father eating a giant, disgusting, greasy and delicious looking hamburger from Lick's, staring him down from the dinner table.

Yep, he was definitely supposed to make his dad dinner today. And because he didn’t, and he didn’t call, and he didn’t come home in time, and was also dropped off by a strange car, the sheriff has decided to make his son feel incredibly guilty by eating a burger with enough grease to make his cholesterol levels shoot up so fast it would put Mentos and Coke to shame.

He’s definitely getting grilled like barbeque meat during dinner. Awesome. Laura didn’t even tell him the story behind her burn scars, what the hell. There was no gain in this for him today.  
  
What would be a good fake name for Stiles’ new Felony Babe of a friend?   
  
*  
  
So, tomorrow rolls around. Derek calls at 10am, it’s a Sunday, and is actually pretty typical. He jumps right to “We’re checking out the Rougeville, Southwick and Hawley houses today,” without saying hello, as per usual, but then he gives Stiles room to say something.  
  
“Cool, sounds good. I think we’ll probably end up going with Rougeville or Hawley, but we can start scoping daily if you want.”  
  
Derek doesn’t say anything. If silence could be described as “pained” or “begrudging,” Stiles thinks this would be example number one. Although there is a bit of whispering in the background.  
  
“Derek.”  
  
He grunts. “My family really likes this idea, by the way. They won’t shut up about y-- it. It’s your fault.”  
  
“Hey, it’s not a crime being a genius, thanks.”  
  
“You’re ridiculous.”  
  
“See you at noon?"  
  
Derek barely gives Stiles the satisfaction of a sigh before hanging up.

Surely enough, two hours later, Stiles gives his father the same bullshit as the night before, wherein he made up his new friend and chemistry partner, “Miguel.” Whose parents are apparently both rich and generous enough to let him have use of a Camaro? He hasn’t figured out the details yet, but at least the sheriff hasn’t seen Derek’s face.

He grabs his bag, filled with snacks and a few other choice items, and runs out to the sleek car now honking in his driveway.  
  
This run seems to go pretty typically, back to the pattern of Derek being rude and Stiles shamelessly provoking him, however there is one thing that’s different.  
  
Which is that Stiles now knows how Derek likes his tiny sandwiches, and the answer is “made by his mother.” Nothing he does is aggressive anymore. They definitely used to be, or at least seemed that way to Stiles, but maybe it was all just a ruse. Who knows, honestly, because Stiles definitely doesn’t.

While they’re sitting in the car, pretending to have an argument, Stiles pulls up his backpack, but he’s not at all interested in the Sweet Chili Heat Doritos crumbs. No, what he’s looking for is his other cargo: six DVDs.  
  
“Alright, as much as I love sitting in a car with you for hours on end scouting houses we’re eventually going to rob, and also apparently eating dinner with your family and discussing houses we’re eventually going to rob -- and I do, really -- there are definitely other ways to spend our quality time together. So pick one.” Stiles lays the movies out on the dashboard.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Pretty sure that’s not on the list.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“No, come on,” Stiles whines, bouncing a little in his seat, probably resembling an upset nine year-old. “You have to pick one.”  
  
“Not gonna happen.”  
  
“I’m seriously wondering if you’ve ever laughed a day in your life,” Stiles deadpans.   
  
“Ha-ha,” Derek returns, even more dry, if that’s possible.  
  
Stiles swipes three movies off the dashboard, putting them back in his backpack. “There, now I’ve narrowed it down for you. I tried to pick one from a variety of flawless movie genres and eras, but you’ve forced me to help you. So choose.”  
  
“ _Star Wars_ and _Star Trek_ count as different genres?”  
  
“First of all, I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask that question. Of course they’re not the same genre, Jesus, who are you? Second of all, this is new-age Star Trek, so they’re also different eras. And lastly, they’re amazing. I had to put them both in.”  
  
Derek pauses for a second. “Aren’t you supposed to pick one? Like a team, one you like better?”  
  
“I definitely like _Star Wars_ more, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the visual _genius_ that is the new-age _Star Trek_ movies.”

“How can you like _Star Wars_ more? Even the old _Star Trek_ series is better than _The Phantom Menace_.”  
  
If Stiles had been drinking water, he would have just spit it everywhere. He’s actually vaguely upset he wasn’t, because the visual and audial effect would have been spectacular.   
  
Derek simply blinks as Stiles regains his composure. “Derek, are you telling me you’re a giant nerd?”  
  
“No, definitely not.”  
  
“You totally are, oh my God -- _wait_. Are you telling me you’ve seen both _Star Trek_ and _Star Wars_ and still think they’re in the same genre?” It’s actually not that big a deal, but it’s fun riling Derek up.  
  
“It’s sci-fi. That’s not up for debate.”  
  
“You can’t just mash them together like that! It’s chaos, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!”  
  
“I don’t think it’s that big a deal.”  
  
“You, Derek Hale, _disgust me_.”  
  
“I’m heartbroken.” The sarcasm is strong with this one.   
  
Derek: 2  
Stiles: 0.  
  
It’s a sad life Stiles leads. He should really up his game.  
  
“Okay, okay, fine. Well, that leaves _How To Train Your Dragon_.”  
  
“I can’t believe out of all the movies to make me choose from, your list was narrowed down to _Star Trek_ , _Star Wars_ and _How To Train Your Dragon_.”  
  
“Listen, Derek, they’re all masterpieces. And since my dad is out on another night shift, you’re going to come over and watch at least one, if not both of the _How To Train Your Dragon_ movies.”  
  
“It doesn’t sound like I have much choice.”  
  
“You really don’t. I just thought we’d spend some time together as friends doing things that aren’t related to illegal activities!”

Derek doesn’t even hesitate. “We’re not friends.”  
  
Stiles sighs, because he knew it was coming. “That’s what I’m saying, dude. We’re so close, though! A couple movies together and _bam_ : friendship. Guaranteed or your money back.”

“We’re not friends, Stiles.”  
  
“Whatever you say, Derek. It’s not like we don’t spend hours of time together, but sure, man. Whatever you say.”  
  
In the next neighbourhood, Derek's a little less friendly (probably to keep his reputation up) and they split up to check the house. He doesn't talk as much, but he never really did in the first place, so Stiles isn't too worried.

Derek literally _helps an old lady cross the street_ , though, and Stiles can't ignore it. He's weak, honestly. This dude, this rude-ass, crime-committing, supposedly emotionless dude, is characterizing the one trait every single Upstanding Citizen stereotype has. He is giving his shoulder to a poor woman who just wants to get to her rich ass house across the way. Stiles almost wants to vomit it's so sweet.

He thinks maybe he should find it weird, because it's so out of character from what Stiles knows, but it somehow isn't weird at all. Which probably has something to do with the fact that Derek keeps his grumpy-ass face throughout the entire ordeal. It looks ridiculous.

An hour later, Stiles finally convinces Derek to stay at his house for a while after dropping him off. And by convinces, he means he nearly had to drag Derek in by his ear.

Its around 6 when they get there, and more like 6:30 when they actually start the first movie because Stiles will eat his own leg before he willingly watches a movie without popcorn.

As it turns out, though, Derek is more fun than Stiles originally thought. After dragging the grump in, Stiles will admit, he did feel a touch of regret. What if it was awkward, right, or Derek hates the movie? Then it's just weird.

"How can a dragon be so adorable," is what Derek breaks the movie-filled silence with, and it surprises the hell out of Stiles.

"Because he's a cat, duh."

"He's obviously a dog," Derek retorts, without even tearing his eyes from the screen.

"What? Derek, no! Toothless is very definitely a cat. There's no question."

Stiles is about to celebrate his first victory when he thinks he hears something -- yep. Derek definitely just whispered "dog," under his breath. How old is he again? Eleven? Jesus.

They end up arguing again over how much Stiles and Hiccup are the same person.

"Sure, I'm like Hiccup because we're both witty, sarcastic and important and fucking _unique_."

"You're both annoying and useless."

"Yeah, well, then you're Astrid. You're grumpy and a showoff"

Derek huffs. "At least I'm not weak."

"My dragon is cooler." Derek doesn't say anything in response.

There it is, Stiles' first win.

Derek: 2  
Stiles: 1.

Instead of watching the second one, they end up playing COD. Because apparently Derek is the type of person who plays _Call of Duty_.  
  
He is also, apparently, the type of person to obnoxiously laugh when he kills Stiles with an admittedly pretty impressive headshot.


	4. Chapter 4

Throughout the next week, Stiles can't help himself from bugging Derek. He texts him at least once every three hours with puns that are each one worse than the last, even though he sees the dude every day on daily hour-long, quick check-ups on the three houses.

In his own defense, he personally finds them absolutely hilarious.

Derek rarely replies positively, but even with the bitter, “that one doesn't even make sense” replies, Stiles can tell they’re still light-hearted. Besides, it’s not like he’s planning on stopping any time soon anyway.  
  
The only day they don’t go out to check up on the houses is Tuesday, because Derek says he has plans for New Year’s Eve and Stiles concludes that means he has to find some too. He’s got to look busy and like, popular.   
  
It just so happens that he was invited to Lydia’s New Years Bash or whatever for the first year of his life. Every so often it still surprises him that they’re actually friends, and even it doesn’t even solely involve Allison’s presence anymore. Like, he and Lydia are actively friends who go out for coffee together semi-regularly. _Nuts_.  
  
Of course, it turns out that attending the party was, in fact, a bad idea, because apparently Scott has already updated everyone on Stiles’ social life. He’s been inside the house for maybe thirty seconds (if you count really fast) when Lydia comes up to him and starts shooting invasive questions at him like rapid-fire.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me you were hanging out with someone new? Is that why you’ve blown me off twice already in the past month? Stiles Stilinski, I don’t get blown off. Seriously, what’s wrong with you? He better be attractive, I swear to God.”  
  
Stiles does a mental pinwheel spin to choose which question to answer first. His brain might be a little biased though, because he thinks maybe every option on the damn thing was to answer the last one, which wasn’t even a question. “He’s definitely attractive, Lyds.”  
  
“Thank God. Although, based on your track record, I wouldn’t expect anything less.”  
  
“I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or yourself.”  
  
“Both. What’s his name?”  
  
Cue a mental game of tug o’ war. He could tell her outright and risk her actually knowing it’s Derek Hale, or he could make her work for it. He settles for an entirely different option. “How did you know he was a guy in the first place? How much did Scott tell you?”  
  
“Barely anything, actually. I put too much faith in that boy. I just used common sense. Name.”  
  
“I have no idea how your brain works. No idea. His name is Derek.”  
  
Lydia narrows her eyes at him for a second. “I definitely know exactly who you’re talking about, and I'm definitely quite impressed, but I’m going to leave it for now.”  
  
“Fantastic. Thank you so much.”  
  
The rest of the party is pretty uneventful, except he does make some half-assed comment at Scott about him betraying his best friend’s trust, and every time he’s within five feet of Lydia she immediately has another question for him.  
  
And there are a group of three hot kids in the corner that don’t really take their eyes off him. He recognizes them from around the school, but he can’t place names. Oh well.  
  
*  
  
**Where are you**  
  
Stiles receives this mysterious text in his room late Thursday. It reminds him that he hasn’t sent Derek any stupid puns yet today. Maybe he should start sending him vomit-worthy internet memes, the reaction would be hilarious.  
  
_uhh in my room why_  
  
**Are you alone?**  
  
Naturally, just when Stiles thought they were getting past three-word text responses, Derek snaps him back to reality.  
  
_yes??_  
  
There isn’t even a fucking buffer period. The text reads delivered and then Stiles is getting a phone call.  
  
“Sunday.”  
  
“Yes, once again, _hello to you too_ , Derek. Also, what?”  
  
Derek sighs. “We’ll check the house out for the last time tomorrow, then do the hit Sunday.”  
  
“Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”  
  
Derek doesn’t say anything, but he also doesn’t hang up, and if there aren’t people quiet-yelling in the background then Stiles must be going absolutely insane.  
  
“Derek…?”  
  
“Yeah,” He answers, “Yeah, one second.” There’s a long pause, more poorly-hushed whispers, and then he finally speaks again. “And you should stay for dinner again.” It sounds pained. “I -- my family wants to see you again.”  
  
“Oh Derek, I’m so sorry your family loves me more than you!”  
  
Dial tone.  
  
Derek: 2  
Stiles: 2  
  
*  
  
The next day, after Stiles is done with school like the good son he is (which was a great conversation to have with Derek, who found out Stiles’ age when he tried to text him that he was coming over at two pm while Stiles was still in class), he texts Derek.  
  
 _alright when do you want to go out  
_  
 **What**  
  
It’s kind of uncharacteristic, honestly, but Stiles is at this point unphased by Derek’s out of character moments.   
  
_you know, robbing houses, making money, living the good life of capitalist impulses_  
  
**Be ready in an hour. Cora needs help with Calc.  
**  
Yep, Stiles is totally unphased. He absolutely does not care about the thought of Derek helping his little sister with her homework.  
  
Oh no, no no no, he’s in trouble. It’s like Derek is digging Stiles’ grave for him.  
  
_a text over three words AND you’re talking about your home life? derek i feel like we’re on a talk show or something are we becoming /friends/?_  
  
**Shut up  
**

_i think there should be a period there, grammar freak_  
  
The grump doesn’t reply, probably because he’s too busy explaining calculus to Cora, but Stiles counts it as yet another win anyway.  
  
Stiles: 3  
Derek: 2  
  
*  
  
An hour later, Derek texts saying he’s outside, and Stiles waves a goodbye to his father as he runs out the door with his backpack. It’s been weird, figuring out details of Miguel’s story as he goes along, but so far the story of the Rich New Kid Who Has To Catch Up On The Semester is working out just fine.  
  
Except for the fact that the sheriff is now patiently awaiting the day Miguel comes to study at their place, instead of Miguel’s or the school or the library. That’s going to be awesome to figure out.  
  
But Stiles runs out to the car and tells Derek to peel out of the driveway as fast as he can so his dad doesn’t have time to get curious, and they’re on their way.

Wednesday, Derek had called and put Stiles on speaker, and together with the Hales they narrowed the list down from three houses to just the Rougeville and Hawley marks, so those are the only two they check on.  
  
The day goes fine, the houses are fine-ish, but they do encounter a bit of a lump in the road for both. A quick romantic-looking stroll around the Rougeville neighbourhood told them that the owners were returning soon, and the Hawley house has symptoms of what looks to be the beginnings of a flood on the inside. Stiles and Derek agree to make no decisions until dinner later that night.  
  
The other thing that happens is that on their way back to Beacon Hills, because Stiles is restless and hungry and also kind of wants to just sit down and figure out what they saw today, he forces Derek to stop in at Starbucks.  
  
That isn’t so unusual. They haven’t done it before, but Stiles has suggested it once or twice and Derek wasn’t really opposed to the idea itself, more the amount of time they had been out and how late it was when Stiles asked.  
  
But they go in, and Stiles sits there with his “icy liquid diabetes” as Derek calls his frappucino, and Derek with his “better-smelling coffee version of his own dark, bitter self” as Stiles so named it, and Stiles tries very hard not to think about Derek’s very specific coffee order or the fact that his eyes are constantly on either Stiles or his mouth.  
  
“You um--” Derek starts, motioning to his own lips.  
  
“What?”  
  
His arm moves toward Stiles, but he stops it. “You’ve got--”  
  
“Oh!” is all Stiles can force himself to say before he’s wiping his mouth with his thumb and pulling it away to look at the whipped cream on it. And then, because he’s an asshole and he really needs to know these things about Derek, he sticks it in his mouth and licks off the cream in the most innocent and subtly-graphic way he can think of.  
  
Derek lets out a harsh breath that Stiles can’t really decipher and then excuses himself to the washroom, which is pretty frustrating.

But the most eventful thing that happens is not that, which was not very eventful anyway, no. No, it’s Scott, showing up with Allison (who is out of bed and not carrying around oxygen!) and getting coffee before noticing Stiles sitting alone.  
  
“Hey, man!” Scott calls, raising his arm to grab Stiles’ attention, as if he didn’t already have it.  
  
Of course, now every single day that Stiles has not checked up on either Scott or Allison is rapidly running through his head. Which is essentially all of them. All of the days.  
  
“Yo, dude, Allison! I’m so sorry I haven’t been around for a while. Seriously, Allison, you look great!”  
  
“Oh it’s no worries, Stiles. I haven’t been around Scott much either. I’m finally getting into physiotherapy, though, so walking around is better. Celebratory coffee.” She smiles wide and her dimples complement her face perfectly.  
  
Scott starts grabbing a chair as he explains Allison’s situation better.

By the time Derek comes back, which is literally probably thirty seconds at the most, there are two more of the four chairs filled than when he left and Stiles is now completely immersed in conversation.  
  
“Oh, shit,” Scott huffs, because he’s the first to see Derek walk towards their table.  
  
Allison lets out a really innocent and confused “what?” before she finally spots him, and Stiles turns around with an apology on his face.  
  
“Sorry, Derek, you can’t just see your friends in a coffee shop and pretend they don’t exist.”   
  
“Apparently,” is all Derek says before sitting down, because obviously he’s incapable of being polite, but at least he isn’t immediately leaving. Stiles counts that as a win.  
  
“Allison, this is my um -- my friend, Derek. He uh--”  
  
“She knows, Stiles.”   
  
“-- You know, he-- What?”  
  
Allison starts laughing a little, and maybe Scott can see the confusion on Stiles’ face because he repeats himself. “She knows who Derek is.”  
  
“Yeah, my friend, who like--”  
  
“No, Stiles, dude, she _knows_.”  
  
And there it is, the lightbulb above his head. “What, seriously?” Allison nods, hesitant smile on her face, and when Stiles looks to Derek he seems as confused as he was when he walked in. “Man, come on,” Stiles says, whining at Scott because it’s what he does best. “You told her without me? I thought we were going to do that together at the end!”  
  
“Well, you seem like you’re prepping for a really big job and she was wondering where you were and I needed someone to talk about you with anyway.”  
  
“Oh, talking shit are we, Scott?”  
  
“No, he wasn’t,” Allison breaks in, through sporadic glances at Derek. “He was concerned. And I don’t really mind, I guess, as long as we use the money right and the people you’re taking from either deserve it or won’t notice it.”  
  
“Great! No conflicts, the scheme continues.”  
  
There’s a slight pause in conversation before Derek finally speaks up. “I should go, it sounds like you need to catch up.” He pauses, probably remembering formalities. “It was nice meeting you, Allison. Scott.”

And then, because they’re giant schemers and they can’t let Stiles live his life for two weeks without interfering , Scott and Allison look at each other before speaking. “No, no, that’s not necessary, we were just coming in for a quick coffee. You two stay, chat.”  
  
“Yeah,” Scott joins in, after Allison nudges him. “We’ll see you later, Stiles. Don’t worry about it. Bye, Derek.”  
  
And they’re off! Except they’re not racing each other, no, apparently they’re racing away from Stiles, for whatever reason. He imagines they probably feel at least a little bit awkward.  
  
“Sorry about that, by the way,” Stiles says, getting up taking a different seat so he and Derek are across from each other again, after Scott had taken Derek’s original seat. “I had no idea they were gonna be here.”   
  
“It’s fine. Who’s Allison?”  
  
Stiles slides his frapp over from his other seat. “She’s Scott’s….. kind of girlfriend? I guess? They dated for like, a year and then she broke up with him. They’re back together now, I think, but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing changes anyway, you know, they’re still gross all the time and we’re like the three musketeers.”  
  
“She smells…” Derek trails off, not looking at Stiles at all.  
  
“What? She smells what? You can say it.”  
  
“She smells like death, Stiles.”  
  
Stiles will admit, he kind of has to contain his smile at the fact that Derek actually sincerely cares about this girl he just met. “Yeah, no worries buddy.” Derek’s facial reaction to that is frankly hilarious. “She broke up with him when she was diagnosed with cancer, dude. We know. It looks like she’s doing better though, right? I mean, I’m proud of her. Maybe not her decision to make Starbucks the first place she goes after walking on her own again, but whatever--”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to judge. We’re in Starbucks.”  
  
“Listen, you. You’re my partner. Why don’t you support me in my judgements? Why can’t you just have my back?”   
  
Derek…. starts laughing. Like, honest-to-god, under-his-breath laughing. Stiles can’t even tell if he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s laughing or not. If he is, he’s doing a terrible job.  
  
“Derek Hale, are you laughing at my jokes?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
Stiles: 4  
Derek: 2  
  
Damn, if Stiles hasn’t upped his game.  
  
*  
  
No less than twenty minutes later, Stiles finds himself once again in the Hale house he once so ignorantly called menacing. How (Stiles thinks to himself as they’re circled around the dinner table and he’s watching them all gripe playfully at each other) could he ever immediately assume a family this pleasant would kill him if he touched their property?  
  
Derek Hale is the blatant answer to that question, apparently.  
  
“Yep, Derek definitely started that rumour back in high school,” Laura affirms, after Stiles has actually asked the question out loud. “Neither of us were really big on having friends over, so no one knew where we lived, I guess.”  
  
Derek smirks, and it’s _terrible_. “It was just a lame story I told in the locker room.”  
  
“Oh shut up, Derek, you just wanted your friends to think your house was as cool as you were.”  
  
“No one even knew it was our house until later! I was just telling a story, don’t pretend you didn’t benefit from it too.”  
  
“You were feeding into all the racist Lycan stereotypes!”  
  
“Better to do it of my own accord though, right?” Derek says meekly. “I was a dumb kid, Laur.”  
  
Laura laughs, but doesn’t say anything. Mark and Talia just sit and watch, pleasantly, as their other daughter pipes up. “You know, they still talk about our house like that. I don’t have the heart to break the news.”  
  
“And you better not, either,” Laura breaks in for her sister, pointing at Stiles, and essentially all he can do is laugh.   
  
Peter and his family chuckle heartily, though the man himself is like, weirdly creepy about it. He’s laughing and he looks sincere, but he’s also staring at Stiles like maybe if he looks long enough it will come off as a physical threat and he won’t even have to open his mouth.  
  
“No, no, if anything I’ve helped the myth, I mean, Derek knows I was legitimately scared of this place before I knew it was you guys who lived here.”  
  
That, out of everything, shuts the entire table up.  
  
“What?” Stiles asks, because it’s been at least 30 seconds and still no one has said anything.   
  
“Well, Stiles,” Mark starts, and it could very well be the first time Derek’s dad has ever spoken to him personally. “I think we’re all just concerned you still feel that way. We don’t generally like to come off as those sorts of people.” He looks around the table, apparently seeing confirming looks from his family. “We’re very present in the community, in fact, your father knows us well. He’s the sheriff, is he not?”  
  
“Oh!” Stiles says, because _oh_. “It wasn’t meant to be insulting, I just-- you know, I didn’t know, I’m s--”  
  
“No,” Talia breaks in, “don’t apologize. We don’t mean you intended to hurt us, Stiles. We just want to know if we still give off that image. Especially to you.”  
  
“No, no, of course not. To be quite honest, I’d never really connected the Hales I saw outside with the Hales in the story, you know? You guys are great, I love you guys!”  
  
That’s when just about everyone notices Derek, whose head snapped to Stiles at the mention of his father and has not moved an inch since.  
  
Peter, of all people, bursts out into laughter. “What, you thought there was another Stiles Stilinski in town? Please, Derek. There’s only one Sheriff Stilinski.” And then he starts laughing again, and Stiles can’t tell if everyone is just as weirded out as him or if they’re used to it by now.  
  
Derek doesn’t say anything, so Stiles decides to. As per usual. “I figured you knew, dude, sorry.”

He kind of just nods, but he doesn’t look too concerned anymore, so Stiles figures he should probably just leave it for now.

Later, after dinner is done and Stiles has helped clean up, he and Derek go down to the basement. Everybody already conferenced about the issues over dinner, so they know the pros and cons of attacking each house and it’s really sort of up to them to decide which one they want to hit.  
  
“I personally think the Rougeville mark is best, but I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if you’re really keen on Hawley,” Stiles mumbles, through a bite of chocolate Talia brought down ten seconds ago.  
  
“No, Mom was right. Hawley’s out, we’d have to hit it tonight.”  
  
“Alright, so that means added precautions on Rougeville. I’ll make sure you close the goddamn door,” Stiles pseudo-sings, “and you can make sure I put on gloves.”  
  
“And zip up your pants.”  
  
“You know, Derek, I’m not really sure me doing up my fly is really that integral to our safety and anonymity, though I do _greatly_ appreciate your enthusiastic concern for my general crotch-area. Very flattering.”  
  
“Actually, I was just trying to remind you of how embarrassed you were.”  
  
Stiles shrugs. “I’ll admit, I did kind of hope you had forgotten about that.”  
  
“Who could forget anything about you? You’re so obnoxious, I’d need amnesia.”  
  
Stiles legitimately can’t tell if Derek’s insulting him or flirting with him. He’s kind of proud.  
  
Stiles: 4  
Derek: 3. 

After they’ve said essentially all they can about robbing houses and related criminal activity, they kind of just sit there, honestly. It gets a little weird, talking about nothing in particular, so Stiles decides to bring up something that’s been bugging him for a while.

“So people just started calling her Gills. Her real name is Mrs. Moore.” Stiles laughs, outright and honestly, because the legitimately didn’t know the librarian’s name, and also didn’t know where the nickname came from.  
  
“Well,” Stiles laughs, “her weird cheek wrinkles don’t really help.” Derek starts laughing, and he must be comfortable because he doesn’t look like he’s trying to stifle it. At all. “Okay no, seriously Derek, she’s a nice woman.”  
  
“Yeah, she’s alright.”  
  
There’s a small pause in conversation before Stiles finally brings the aforementioned Thing up.  
  
“So, um, Derek. I have a question, but I get that it could be kind of, like, personal and stuff so you don’t have have to answer it or whatever if you don’t want to, because I know if you asked me a couple weeks ago I wouldn’t have answered because it’s personal for me, you know, and you’re kind of--”  
  
“Stiles, just ask.”  
  
“Why are you robbing houses? You don’t seem like a rebellious dude, I’ve never even seen you jaywalk and you swerved for a chipmunk the other day. Your family’s all in it, too, but from the size of your house, you guys seem pretty okay financially. So why do the Hales need money? And why do you need to steal for it?”  
  
The question seems to take a lot out of Derek -- who sighs almost immediately -- even before answering it. “I thought you might ask at some point.” He waits a second for whatever reason before going on. Listening, maybe? “We’re pretty well off, financially, yes. But a while ago, there was an accident with my sister and Peter’s family. Typically, we’d be fine, even after everything, but we lost a lot. After a while, I pieced together what had happened with the ‘accident.’  
  
“When I was in high school, I dated a woman named Kate. She was much older than me, and I can see now that she was very manipulative. I told her I was Lycan about a month in, but she already knew. Two months later, she burned down a house. The wrong house, Uncle Peter’s house, thank God, because all of us were here. But Peter’s oldest daughter, Maddy, had just gone back to their house to get steak sauce, I think, when Kate lit it up. Laura was on her way over from her apartment downtown and was the only one to smell it, so she ran over and dragged Maddy’s body out. She only barely made it.”  
  
“Oh my God,” Stiles says, because there’s not much else to say. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Me too.” Derek takes another deep breath in, and Stiles can’t help but wonder how many times he’s told this story. Once, maybe? Is this the first time? He seems exhausted and it makes Stiles feel guilty, but for all he knows Derek needs to get it out. “We’ve been trying to find Kate’s hideout ever since. She stole family heirlooms from us, and we still want them back. She’s been seen at every location I’ve hit so far, it’s just coincidence that you started showing up too. I’ve seen her at Rougeville.”  
  
“That’s nuts,” Stiles says, just before something clicks in the back of his head. “Hold on a second--” he warns, before launching into a full-on flashback sequence. He goes through every time he’s seen Derek at all the different marks they’ve hit, everything he’s ever said there, all the times they’ve talked about robbing, even everything his family has said about the same illegal pastimes. “You--”  
  
 _Lightbulb_.  
  
“YOU HAVEN’T BEEN TAKING ANYTHING.”  
  
Derek actually laughs again. He seems amused by Stiles’ reaction.  
  
“All this time, Jesus, Derek, you didn’t even have a _bag_ when I saw you in the first house, CHRIST. I am an _idiot_.  I’m so stupid. How dare I call myself the sheriff’s son, Lord almighty, I am a disgrace to the Stilinski family name. This explains so much, dude. This is why you guys suck with strategy of actual robbery!”  
  
“What? We don’t suck at strategy.”  
  
“Derek, you guys didn’t even scout more than one house at a time.”  
  
“That’s because we already had specific houses we were looking for.”  
  
“Okay, but you left the door open. That’s such a stupid move, dude, come on. What are you making that face for? Stop it. You left doors open, that’s dumb, admit it. You--” Derek just continues to stare at him until he gets it. Two seconds later there’s another lightbulb above his head and pretty soon they’re going to start crashing into each other. “You were leaving an escape route, weren’t you?”  
  
He shrugs. “I didn’t want to be trapped in case she decided to drop another match. She might get smart and put mountain ash in the walls, I don’t know.”

“Jesus. Okay, so then what were you doing?”  
  
“Searching.”  
  
Stiles emphatically encourages him to expand on that thought, using a lot of sporadic arm movements.   
  
“We had seen her or her family at all the houses we marked, so we figured there might be some information there.” Derek rolls his eyes when Stiles prods for more. “Information like where her headquarters are, who she’s working with, what they’re working towards, maybe the locations of some of the artifacts she’d taken. We don’t think she’s working with anyone anymore, though.”  
  
“That makes so much sense. You left literal piles of money lying around once. I didn’t even think about the fact that you didn’t take them.” Stiles laughs a bit, and Derek laughs with him.  
  
“So,” the older man finally says. “What about you, then?”  
  
“Oh, I’m actually a legitimate criminal. I am robbing vacant targets for money. Which I use for self-gain. And I have a complete disregard for the law and typical human morals.”  
  
“That’s not true, Stiles.”  
  
“Fine.” Stiles lies down on his back. He doesn’t really expect Derek to follow, like, at all, but he does. “We need the money. We need as much as we can get, honestly. Scott and I decided to channel Jesus and be actual decent human beings when Allison was diagnosed, you know, help her dad pay for treatments and whatever because  
the Lord above knows deep down the Argents can’t really afford the capitalistic greed of American doctors and the painstaking financial costs of Godforsaken leukemia. So we help them as much as they can, but both of us are off to university in a year, too, and we don’t exactly have money trees growing in our backyard.”  
  
“Are you religious?”  
  
“No, not really. Why?”  
  
“You just mentioned God at least three times.” Stiles is still surprised by how much Derek actually makes him laugh.  
  
“Yeah, I blame a lot of my problems on Him. It’s easier.” Stiles is also genuinely surprised by how much he makes Derek laugh.  
  
“That’s rough,” Derek half-whispers, after a while, to the ceiling.  
  
“Yeah. Your situation’s not much better, dude, I’m sorry. That’s shitty.”  
  
“Don’t be.”  
  
It’s probably the softest thing Derek has ever said to him, and it _aches_ , oh, it aches. It takes every ounce of willpower and self-restraint that Stiles can truthfully say he possesses not to roll over and kiss him. Kiss him until they stop thinking for a while. Kiss the look of guilt off his face. Kiss him safe.  
  
The man beside him is loyal, and loving, and likes his mother’s lasagna enough to flash his wolf-eyes at his Cora. He sits crosslegged and has watched all the Star Wars and Star Trek movies and has snorted at least once while laughing. Derek Hale is protective, and fierce, and gorgeous, and kind, and helps old ladies cross the street, and doesn’t deserve to be so sad, and -- and --  
  
And Stiles was right about being in trouble: he’s definitely falling for his own partner in crime.  
  
“Did you say Argent?” Derek says, suddenly, and it doesn’t sound good.  
  
“Your Kate…. as in, Kate Argent. Allison’s aunt. Right? Awesome. That’s just -- that’s great.”  
  
*  
  
Eventually they both go back upstairs and every Hale in sight looks almost suspiciously busy.   
  
Derek leans in to whisper in Stiles’ ear. “They’re pretending they haven’t been listening to everything we said.”  
  
“You wish your conversations were that interesting,” Laura says, without looking up from her book, at the same time that Cora calls, “We were not!”  
  
“Well, don’t worry about being embarrassed or anything, I’m off anyway.” Stiles does not expect a chorus of “awws” coming from literally everywhere in the house, but especially not from Peter. “Oh come on, thank you, thank you, I’m here all week.”  
  
“Come again soon, Stiles. I still have to make you my Shepard’s Pie,” Talia waves, and there are scattered noises of excitement.   
  
Stiles manages to get out a simple, “Thanks, Talia. I’ll see you guys later!” before Derek is quite literally shoving him out the door and onto the porch. “You know, you could just tell me to move faster like a regular human being who uses their words.”  
  
“I’m not a human being though, am I? And they’d never let you leave.”  
  
“You’re a special brand of human being. Stop trashing your family, dude, I did enough of that for the both of us a couple weeks ago.”  
  
“I’m related to them,” Derek replies, pulling out of the driveway. “I love them, but there are no limits to my trashing.”  
  
“Just wait until you run out of material.”  
  
“I guess it’s a good thing I’m a patient man, then.”  
  
Stiles... thinks that was a score for Derek? Maybe? Whatever. Give him one anyway. They may as well throw out the scoreboard now, because Stiles is about to start giving Derek points for breathing.  
  
Stiles: 4  
Derek: 4.  
  
“Oh, hey. I have another question for you,” Stiles declares, as they’re nearing his house.   
  
“Shoot.”  
  
“I don’t get it, dude. You’re not taking anything, you and your family already know almost everything there is to know about the perfect B&E, and you already have set houses you want to hit.” Derek pulls over just around the corner from Stiles’ house as he’s speaking. “Why did you agree to team up with me?”  
  
“Laura was bugging me about getting out more.”  
  
“Really? And _robbing houses_ is how you decide to make friends?”  
  
“I have other friends,” -- Stiles can’t help but interrupt him with a scoff -- “but they’re actually just pack that you haven’t met yet, so Laura doesn’t count them.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Anyway,” Derek plows on, “I thought it was going to be a quick thing, maybe a day or two of planning and then Laura would be off my back for a little while.”  
  
“Seriously? It’s been like, more than two weeks now, dude.”  
  
“Yeah, well, turns out my family likes you.” Derek is worryingly good at jokingly sounding bitter. Or at least, Stiles thinks it’s a joke.  
  
Stiles laughs though, because he knew Derek would have to admit it some day. “Oh don’t worry, I know.” He adds a smug smirk in just for the hell of it.  
  
“And I don’t really mind hanging around you either.”  
  
“Aww, Derek, that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me! I guess you’re not so bad yourself.” They laugh and then Stiles is ushering Derek to start the car again. “Now come on, my dad’s going to be home soon.”  
  
“What are you telling him, anyway?”

“Oh you know, the usual. That I’m hanging around with a dude twice my age and we bang and rob houses in our spare time.” Stiles tries not to find Derek’s face hilarious, but he can’t help it. The dude could be impressed or horrified, Stiles has no idea, but the face he’s making is comedic gold. “Nah, I told him you’re my new science partner Miguel.”  
  
“Definitely less hot.”  
  
“Do you ever say something that isn’t a one-liner? I’ll see you later, Miguel.” Stiles fumbles with his key for at least ten minutes like a blithering idiot before he actually manages to get inside his own goddamn house. Picking locks and getting into strangers’ houses? Sure, fine, whatever. His own house, though, after Derek essentially calling them friends, maybe hitting on him? He may as well be trying to break into a steel bank vault with a bobby pin.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s Sunday. Stiles feels adrenaline start pumping through his legs as Derek pulls up three streets away from their hit in Rougeville, and he knows Derek’s already reminded him to do something important twice but he can’t remember what it is.  
  
“Put on your gloves, Stiles.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Breathe. Are you breathing?”  
  
“Yeah,” Stiles responds, though he has to check first. “I’m not usually this nervous, you know. I think it’s because you said you saw Kate here. I’ve never met her, but man, the thought of her is creeping me out. Has she been stalking us? How did I just happen to pick houses she had been lurking in?”  
  
“I think she just used the same checklist you did. I don’t think she’s been following you around, Stiles. Just focus. This one’s big, we’ll get you enough, okay?”  
  
“Thanks, Derek.” Stiles finally lets himself take a deep breath in and calm down. He grounds himself, then gives Derek an incredibly cliche thumbs up. “Okay, yep, now we’re good. So I’ll take the direct path and you go in the back --” He can barely get the words out before he’s bursting into laughter.  
  
Derek only rolls his eyes, but it’s lighthearted. “Stiles.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, okay. Jesus, you sure use my name a lot, you should be like a -- you know, a -- fuck, what’s something that says your name a lot? Okay, okay, I’m grabbing my stuff, I’m going. Stop staring like that, Christ.” Once he’s actually out of the car and has his dufflebag, Stiles leans back into the window one last time. “Be careful, okay? I’ll see you in there.”  
  
And then Derek is driving off, and Stiles is left to go gentle into that good night, looking suspicious as hell. It’s a bit of a trek up to the house, but it’s not a steep hellish incline or anything, so Stiles can’t complain too much.  
  
Getting inside the house is difficult. The type of lock used is almost impossible to pick, plus there are two more locks on the inside, which is frustrating. However, it is also common robber knowledge that the more locks this paranoid rich guy has on his house, the more expensive shit he’s worried about losing. Finally he decides to hop the backyard fence and go in the back door, which, surely enough, doesn’t have as many locks and is also a flimsy sliding glass panel posing as a door, so it gets easy from there.   
  
After closing the door again behind him and gaping shamelessly at the sheer filthy _richness_ of this stupid house, Stiles unbolts the front door for Derek, who shows up less than a minute later.   
  
“Look at this place, dude, it’s practically dripping in Rich Person Ego. Do you really think Kate would use this for anything?” Stiles walks over to a painting on the wall. “I think this frame could single-handedly get me through college.”  
  
Of course, Derek’s already on the other side of the house. “Even if she hasn’t been here, Stiles, it doesn’t matter. This mark is yours.”  
  
“Aww, Derek,” Stiles coos, already dropping shit in his bag, “You shouldn’t have.”

After walking around a bit more, though, Stiles starts to feel uneasy. “Derek…” There’s no response. “Derek?” Nothing. “Derek! Where are you?”

“Right here,” a voice says behind him, and Stiles doesn’t have time to register the voice before he’s nearly pissing himself as he turns around. “I’m right here, Stiles,” he confirms, and it’s just Derek, thank God.   
  
“Jesus, what is your problem? Holy shit, don’t sneak up on people like that, I think I almost shat myself.”  
  
Derek rolls his eyes, because becoming friends with the dude obviously doesn’t mean he’s going to be any more polite. It’s friendly and playful though, so Stiles decides he’ll let it slide. “What do you need?”  
  
“I’m just worried. This doesn’t feel like bait to you? I just found two Macbook Airs. Stacked. Unopened.”  
  
Derek seems to think about it for a moment before walking over to the front door again and unlocking it. “Better safe,” he says, before walking downstairs, and Stiles is 99.9 percent sure there’s a second half to that saying, but maybe it’s just Derek’s style to only say the first bit.  
  
Stiles wanders into the kitchen, hauling his dufflebag behind him. “Seriously, Derek, I am currently picking up a literal stack of money. There are bank envelopes right here.”  
  
“You’ve picked up stacks of money before,” Derek calls up from the basement, and they probably shouldn’t be yelling around the house, but there’s definitely nobody home so it doesn’t really matter too much.  
  
“Well yeah, but that made sense. They were kind of hiding under books and stuff, and it was forty dollars, tops. Like an emergency fund for the kids for pizza. This is like, hundreds. Either these guys are really stupid or really confident, but either way we just got really lucky.”  
  
“Or we’re walking right into something.”  
  
“Yeah! Or we’re walking right into our own choice fate of boobytraps and impending doom. Does that not scare you? I’ve already got some stuff, Derek, let’s just get out of here.” Seriously, nobody has two separate sets of high-end silverware, right? Maybe he’s just poor. He’s probably just poor.  
  
After over five minutes have passed and Derek still hasn’t said anything in response, Stiles calls again. And obviously, because the dude downstairs is either legitimately in trouble or likes Stiles believing he is, he still doesn’t answer.  
  
So, like the fucking brilliant boy he is, Stiles decides going down to probably also die is the best option. He’s just curious, okay? He’s living up to his father’s legacy, following in his footsteps or whatever.   
  
And he might also be kind of petrified about Derek being in trouble.   
  
It’s kind of pathetic, actually, that his heart is racing and his stomach is aching and visions of Derek bleeding from various places (which might be a tiny bit hot if it weren’t fucking terrifying) are flashing through his brain. He might throw up.  
  
Because he does have a slight sense of self-preservation, Stiles doesn’t call his name again as he’s creeping down the stairs on his literal tip-toes. Once he’s finally at the bottom and around the corner, he does call Derek’s name, but only because he’s in sight and standing very still and Stiles wants to make sure he’s not under like, a spell or some shit.  
  
“Derek? Are you okay?”  
  
He nods. Kind of, maybe? It’s a little hard to tell from the back, but whatever. “I think I found something.”  
  
If Derek wasn’t trying to spike Stiles’ weak spot, his overwhelming curiosity, then he must just be very lucky today, because Stiles nearly trips over his own feet running over there. “What is it? Why are you just standing there staring, come on, Derek, do something.”  
  
“It’s a trap door, I think.”  
  
“Can we open it?” Stiles asks, because he’s still around Derek’s back and can’t see the thing.  
  
He finally moves around and sees the door already propped open. “It was already open.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound like a trap at all, Derek!”  
  
“I was waiting for you.” That definitely softens Stiles up.  
  
“Well then maybe you should have answered when I called your name, dumbass, we’re a team. Come on, let’s check it out.” And then, to satisfy the undying itch at the back of his brain, Stiles jumps in.  
  
Actually, he uses the fucking ladder, because he’s not an ape, but apparently Derek (who, of course, literally jumps down after him) didn’t get the memo.   
  
It turns out to be an underground sort of wine cellar-type thing, after they turn a lightbulb on and close the door, except there isn’t much wine past the first couple steps. In fact, Stiles keeps walking only to notice that Derek isn’t following. Because he’s standing still near the entrance. Because he’s staring at the wall. Which is apparently holding something vaguely important on the shelves.  
  
“Derek? What is it?”  
  
“This is my mom’s.” Yeah, as if Stiles needed a sobering punch to the gut to the day. Or is it a punch to the heart? He can’t tell, honestly, he just knows everything hurts and it’s Kate’s fault.  
  
Stiles inches closer, because he doesn’t really know if Derek needs him or even wants him there for that matter, but he feels the need to support him anyway. It’s all he can bring himself to do, putting a hand on Derek’s shoulder from behind.  
  
“Here,” Stiles says, taking his hand off Derek to open his bag. “Is there anything else?”  
  
Derek’s face is horrified when he turns around to put the necklace in the bag. “All of it. We thought most of it was lost in the fire, but--” He walks down the wall, running his hands over some of the things there. “It’s all -- she took all of it.”

“Everything’s here? There’s nothing missing?” Derek shakes his head. “Well,” Stiles starts, smiling softly and putting his hand on Derek’s arm again, “Let’s see if we can make it all fit.”  
  
They actually do a pretty good job, if Stiles does say so himself. There’s only a few things they have to carry by hand and Derek is eventually very, very happy that they’ve found everything, as opposed to the sadness he had shown before.  
  
They’re about to leave when Derek tells Stiles to wait.  
  
“What?” is really all Stiles can say. He truthfully doesn’t understand what he should be waiting for,  but that’s when he realizes he really does trust Derek. Wholeheartedly trusts him.  
  
“Put those down for a second,” he sort of demands, pointing to the overflow that’s in Stiles’ hands. Derek does it first, placing a couple books on the shelf beside him, and Stiles follows his lead, curiosity literally killing him.   
  
And then Derek is moving closer, and Stiles can feel nerves and excitement rise in his stomach and he tries to ignore them because he’s probably reading the situation wrong and that would be embarrassing. But then Derek is very, very close, and he whispers a soft, “Thank you,” before he’s cupping Stiles’ jaw and brushing their lips together.  
  
He only has about two-point-three seconds to register it all, but he does notice the strength and steadiness of Derek’s hands, the confidence about him, and the softness of his lips. Other than that, Stiles doesn’t have much time to react.  
  
And then Derek is moving away, picking up his books from the shelf, saying “We should go.” And then he’s dropping the books on the floor and speaking to Stiles again, and Stiles honestly can’t really tell what the dude is saying.

Actually, he’s not speaking, he’s -- he’s yelling. What is he yelling about?

“Stiles! Get behind me!” What?  
  
“Oh, Derek. Protecting your little prize, are you? That’s adorable.”   
  
_Immediate chills_. The worst kind of chills. He’s heard that voice before.  
  
Stiles whips around to see a blonde woman propping open the trapdoor and grinning with an insane amount of creepiness. “You! I saw you on the street a couple weeks ago!”  
  
“Stiles, get behind me,” Derek barks, and it’s basically a light switch.  
  
Stiles feels his head whip towards the woman, and then to Derek, and then to the claws coming out of Derek’s hands, and _oh_. “She -- _That’s_ Kate?”  
  
“Get behind me,” once again, is all Derek growls, and this time Stiles runs to obey. Naturally, as soon as he’s out of the way, Derek does a run and jump to try and attack Kate.  
  
“Ah, ah, ah,” is all she coos, in a tone of a children’s scold, completely unafraid. “Not today.” Then she lets two small circles roll out of her hand and on to the floor of the cellar. “Oops,” she says, like a true psychopath, as they (of course) explode into Painful Eye Gas. Like a pepper spray bomb.  
  
They hear the trapdoor squeaking, both blinded, and then Kate’s voice once more. “I’ll see you in hell, Derek. Maybe your boy toy can come too!” And then she’s laughing, and the trapdoor shuts above them.  
  
It’s maybe thirty seconds before Stiles’ knees hit the ground, weak, and Derek’s already at the door. And obviously, because everything remotely related to luck hates them, both Derek and Stiles left their phones in the car.  
  
“Stiles,” he calls back, and it doesn’t sound good.  
  
“Please tell me you’re about to give me good news. There’s a limited number of ways this situation get worse, okay, and I would not like to explore the possibilities.”  
  
“The door is hot and I can’t open it.”  
  
Fantastic. “Fantastic! So she’s probably locked us in this stupid fucking cellar, my eyes are bleeding, I swear to god, I’m getting weaker with each passing second and she probably also set the house around us up in flames! Great. What a fantastic way to die.”  
  
Stiles lets himself sit with that mindset for almost a minute before he’s back on his feet again and trying to find a way out. After trying the door once on his own, an idea which came to him after ten minutes of trying literally everything else (pounding on the steel walls) and limited creativity, he calls, “Derek?”   
  
“What?”  
  
“What did the door feel like when you tried it?”  
  
“It wouldn’t budge.”  
  
“Like it was too heavy? Or like it was stuck?”  
  
Derek pauses before answering. “Stuck. What are you thinking?”  
  
“Mountain ash. You said the door was already open, right? maybe closing it completes the circle.” Derek nods. “Although, I just tried it and it’s locked the normal way, too. Meaning I can’t open it without you, and you can’t open it without me, but it’s impossible to do it together.”  
  
Smoke creeps in through the cracks in the ceiling while they do their best to think, literally, outside the box. Smoke is defying the laws of heat, particle theory and gravity just to scare the living shit out of them. That, or the ceiling above them is burning. Awesome.  
  
It’s hot and they’re both a little short of breath two minutes later when Derek finally has an idea.  
  
Executing it turns out to be a little difficult (and painful), but they do manage to get out of the cellar by Derek pushing on Stiles’ elbows while he pushes on the door. It works though, and that’s all they really need. From there, they manage to make it to the stairs fine, until actually climbing them, when Stiles actually collapses and proceeds to do his best impression of a snake climbing a mountain.  
  
Eventually Derek gives up watching him struggle, he supposes, because he hoists Stiles up by his shoulders and gives him one to lean on. They’re both coughing wildly, which basically confirms there’s wolfsbane burning in the air as well, but they keep moving. The stairs are a literal uphill battle, and they take forever.  
  
As soon as they make it to the main floor, Derek army crawls way ahead of Stiles, heading straight for the door. He’s about to try and yell about partners abandoning each other (in fact he’s halfway through a raspy sentence) when he realizes a) he doesn’t have the energy and b) Derek’s just moving ahead to open the door.  
  
Which isn’t locked. Because Derek is a paranoid genius.

He manages to reach up and open the door an inch before he collapses again, and some of the smoke starts getting swept into the night breeze. Derek waits, like an idiot, just outside the door for Stiles to slowly worm his way there, his bag dragging along behind him, resembling a ball-and-chain more and more every inch Stiles crawls.

Once they're outside and on the sidewalk, Stiles is all content to just sit down and catch his breath when Derek ruins all hope of that.

All he says is Stiles' name, but that's all he needs for Stiles to be immediately concerned. One look at Derek right now is enough to know that he’s in trouble. His eyes are bloodshot, his skin pale, and there’s something coming out of his nose that Stiles doesn’t want to think about. He can’t see any wounds, but Derek definitely looks like he’s dying.  
  
“We have to go,” is what Derek instead of something a bit more reasonable, like maybe  “call an ambulance.” Stiles understands, though, because with a now flaming house behind them, neighbours are definitely going to start coming out of their respective houses and gathering in the streets out of genuine concern. If Stiles and Derek are seen coming out of the house, or in the general vicinity, especially wearing all black, they’ll definitely be seen as suspects.  
  
“Yeah, okay. Here, come on, up. Let’s get to the car.” Stiles does his best to pick up Derek and give him a shoulder to walk with just like the dude had done for him earlier, but Stiles is definitely weaker and Derek is definitely bigger. They manage to get to the car without any doors opening up, though, and Stiles takes the keys to drive home.  
  
The roof of the Rougeville house crumbles and the first resident peeks their head out of their front door just as the Camaro turns the corner.  
  
It’s a bit of a hassle to do while driving, especially because he’s speeding by at least 40mph over the limit at all times and his hands are shaking because Derek is dying in the passenger seat to his own car, but Stiles does manage to get the bluetooth up to call Talia and inform her of the night’s disastrous turn for The Worst. She orders him to bring Derek home as soon as humanly possible, and Stiles warns her that Kate might be coming for them.  
  
He whips into the gravel driveway outside the Hale mansion and immediately rockets himself out of the driver’s seat to go around to Derek’s side. He opens the door and gently tries to get him out, doing his best to coax Derek into standing. It works, of course, until it doesn’t, and Derek is falling into Stiles who barely catches him before sinking to his knees and giving the best wail of distress of his life to call for Talia.  
  
When the door finally opens, after what seems like hours but was probably more like a minute at the most, it isn’t just Talia who comes out. She comes first, but just behind her are three of the people Stiles least expected to see. Just behind them are Cora and Laura, followed by Peter and Mark.  
  
“Please help me, I don’t know what’s wrong with him, I don’t know what to do.” Stiles doesn’t even realize he’s been saying anything until Talia shushes him and wipes away one of his tears.  
  
“Laura,” she commands, directing her attention to her oldest daughter, who is now crouched beside her at Derek’s head. “Go get me the Aconitum vulparia stash. Cora,” (who’s crouching beside Stiles and has one hand on his shoulder and the other in Derek’s hair), “He needs water.” The girls race off into the house, and Talia continues to assess her son.  
  
Her next order is given to the three mystery kids who are standing behind Talia like a guard team. “You three, hold him down. Erica, sit on his legs. Boyd and Isaac, each of you need to take an arm.”   
  
Stiles finally makes the connection of names-to-faces and realizes that the three people she’s talking to are kids that go to his school, kids who were also at the New Year’s Eve party.  
  
That’s when the Hale sisters come back, and also when Stiles realizes he’s kind of just sitting there in awe instead of actually helping.  
  
He’s about to do something about it, actually, when Mark comes up behind him to put a hand on his shoulder like Cora had. “There’s nothing you can do right now, Stiles, except what you’re doing.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“You’re grounding him, like an anchor to a ship. He needs you.”  
  
Stiles looks down and realizes that he’s holding Derek’s hand, tightly, and even though he looks practically unconscious, Derek’s squeezing his too. The guy Stiles remembers as Isaac is even giving him room to, instead pressing down on Derek’s elbow.  
  
“Stiles, this is going to hurt your hand. Free it now or bear with him.” He doesn’t truthfully know where it comes from, but he shakes his head and keeps his hand in Derek’s grip.  
  
Not ten seconds later, Talia is forcing her son to drink a glass of water with a purple liquid on top that is quite literally _still flaming_ and Stiles feels a scream fall out of his own mouth.  
  
*  
  
Two hours later, Stiles is sitting in a chair next to Derek’s bed, using his right hand to hold Derek’s while Cora wraps his other in a layer of gauze. It’s still fully functioning, no breaks or fractures, but when Derek squeezed his hand, he did wolf out a little. Stiles’ hand is just bleeding in a few places, that’s all.  
  
“Stiles.” It’s the first word Derek’s said since Rougeville. “I’m sorry.”  
  
It takes a while for Stiles to process what he’s said, mostly because it just doesn’t make any sense. “For what?”  
  
Cora ducks out of the room, probably sensing the need for privacy. “The bag was filled with my stuff.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So all you got was a couple handfuls of money.” Derek breaks to cough a little, which is kind of worrying, but he definitely looks leagues better than before. He’s strong and stable, but Talia has been fierce about not letting him out of bed, and Stiles isn’t one to oppose the alpha of a pack he’s not even in. “The hit was for you. The entire point was to find a rich house so you could finish off payments for Allison and start saving for school.”  
  
Stiles shrugs. “I’ve been thinking I need to find new jobs.”  
  
“New?”  
  
“Scott and I started robbing because I lost my job at the fucking supermarket or whatever and we needed fast cash. She was bad back then, we couldn’t afford to wait and find Real Jobs. Now that she’s better and we have more time, I’m thinking maybe I could find another job.” Derek’s rubbing circles into his thumb again, just like the first time they held hands, and Stiles doesn’t even try to ignore the warmth spreading through his stomach this time.  
  
“You said jobs. Plural.”  
  
“Yeah, jobs plural.” He can’t help but sigh before going on. “I mean, sure, Allison’s better, but she’s still got physio and shit. One job for her, one job for me.”  
  
“What about school?”  
  
“You sure have a lot of questions for someone who almost just died,” Stiles jokes, and maybe he should feel bad about joking right now but he and Derek are both laughing, so who cares. “I guess I’ll deal with school somehow.”  
  
“I meant homework. You’re barely going to have time to sleep.”   
  
“Aww, he does care!”  
  
“Shut up.” Stiles laughs again, he can’t help it. There’s a slight pause before Derek speaks again. “You could always hit another house.”  
  
“Yeah, I guess. Scott doesn’t want to anymore, though, and it’s kind of petrifying on your own, as you probably know.”  
  
“I meant together.”  
  
Stiles thinks it’s a joke at first, but if Derek’s face is usually stone-cold serious, it’s even more so now. “You don’t even have a reason to rob anymore. You’d be putting yourself at unnecessary risk of the law’s wrath. That’s stupid.”  
  
“Well, you need _someone_ to keep you out of trouble. And if we’re such a good team, as I remember you saying, why not me?”  
  
“You drive a convincing argument, Mr. Hale. Whoever shall remind me to put on gloves if I don’t have you?”  
  
“Or zip up your fly,” Derek says, with a nasty smirk, and Stiles yells “Shut up!” probably way louder than necessary.  
  
It’s a while before they talk about something important again, but this time it’s Stiles who breaks the silence, because he’s nothing if not the Official Breaker of Silence. “Can we talk about the cellar now?”  
  
“Hmm?” Derek hums as he opens his eyes again, kind of lidded with the threat of impending sleep. “We already told them about the stuff we brought back.”  
  
“No, I mean -- You kissed me.”  
  
That gets Derek’s eyes to open a little more. “Yeah.”  
  
“Was that just, like, a thank you for werewolves, or…?”  
  
Derek thinks for a second. “I guess it was. But it was also because, well, I mean -- you know.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m holding your hand right now, you must know.” Derek sounds pained.  
  
“Wait. Derek Hale, do you have a crush on me?”  
  
The frown he makes is absolutely hilarious. “No, I kissed you because you’re disgusting and I hate you.”  
  
“Oh my God, Derek Hale likes me! You _like_ me,” Stiles sing-songs, the last part more of a taunt.  
  
“Please shut up.”  
  
“Does that mean I get to kiss you again?”   
  
Derek pauses, like an asshole, before nodding.  
  
Stiles stands up, and the minute he leans down to press his lips to Derek’s, he hears whisper-cheers from downstairs. They must be much louder to Derek, but even Stiles can hear them.  
  
“Do you want to stop?” Stiles asks, just in case.  
  
Derek smirks again, hooking a finger into Stiles’ jean belt loops and yanking him closer. “Why would we give them the satisfaction?”  
  
* EPILOGUE *  
  
1\.   
  
Talking erupts into the room as the credits roll, the loudest snippets being Erica’s, “I want a dragon,” and Cora and Laura’s exclamations of, “Stiles totally is Hiccup!”  
  
Stiles can feel Derek’s eyes on his head, so he turns to see the older man staring directly at him with eyes that say, “I told you so.”  
  
“Don’t say it, dude, I swear to God.”  
  
“I told you so.”  
  
“Damn it, Derek, come on!”  
  
Then Boyd, who already has the remote up and ready, asks, “Want to watch Brave, or the second one?” and the whole room dives into a debate.  
  
Derek and Stiles try to keep their grossness to a minimum, but every so often Cora still whispers from the couch behind them, “You know, there is a movie going on. It’s about family and shit, pay attention.”  
  
The thing is, Stiles was absolutely right when he joked about Derek’s family loving him. They do love him, including the three betas. They still whine when he tells them he has to go, and they’ve also started bantering with him, which is probably the true signature Hale mark of approval.  
  
In fact, after the Rougeville incident, the Hales all treat Stiles differently in miniscule ways. Laura doesn’t constantly watch him out of the corner of her eye, Cora hugs him all the time. Mark’s face lights up every time Stiles comes over, and Peter’s wife actually speaks to him, where she seemed too shy before.  
  
Actually, Peter isn’t creepy at all anymore, and Stiles can see now that it was actually him being protective, which makes sense. The three betas treat him like a close friend after a while, and Talia --   
  
Talia treats him almost like pack.  
  
2.  
  
The next day, Stiles decides to tell his dad. About everything. Well, almost everything. Actually, not even close.  
  
“So, um, I think I’m dating somebody.” Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to start this conversation while he’s making dinner, but at least he’s the one with the pot and stove and not his father. Lord knows the sheriff would rather burn food that opt out of giving Stiles the grill stare during this conversation.  
  
He doesn’t know what he expected, but it sure wasn’t his father laughing at him. “You think? That’s not a very good sign, Son. Who is it? It’s not Lydia, is it?”  
  
“Uh, no. It’s not Lydia, it’s someone else. He doesn’t go to my school.”  
  
“Oh.” The sheriff sips his coffee from the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the counter. “Is he from out of town?”  
  
“Nope. He lives here, in Beacon Hills. In fact, you definitely know him.”  
  
“Oh no.”  
  
Stiles laughs, stirring the pasta. “He’s older than me.” Might as well get that particular shock out of the way, right?  
  
“Just give me a name, Son.”  
  
“Like a band-aid?”  
  
“Like a band-aid.”  
  
“Alright, fine, you asked for it. Derek Hale.” Stiles pretends he can’t hear the sigh from his father’s direction. “I said you knew him.”  
  
The sheriff hums. “And how did you two cross paths again?”  
  
“Can I save that story for later?”  
  
“I suppose. Does he have anything to do with the injuries on your left hand from a couple weeks ago?”  
  
“That is another story for another time, Dad, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Fine, but that’s your last pass. Is he the one who drives a Camaro?”  
  
Stiles winces, he’s not going to lie. Like he has been to his father for two months. “Yes?”  
  
“Uh huh. So no Miguel, then. Well,” he says, taking a deep breath in, probably psyching himself up or whatever parents do when they have this conversation with their kids. “Are you two being safe?”  
  
Suddenly, the pasta gets very, very interesting. “Oh my God, Dad, please don’t. I’ve kissed him like, a handful of times, that is not necessary. At all.”  
  
“But you will be safe if it comes to th--”  
  
“Yes! Yes, absolutely. I promise you, we will be the safest ever. I told him to come over in like, twenty minutes, okay? Do you think you can try not to completely embarrass me?”  
  
The sheriff laughs a little. “Maybe.”  
  
Twenty minutes later, when Derek rings the doorbell, Stiles’ father gives him one last, “I don’t like that he’s older than you,” before opening the door.  
  
“Hello, Derek.”  
  
“Nice to finally see you again, Sheriff Stilinski.”  
  
3.  
  
It’s a month later when Stiles finally manages to mix his worlds. He decides to host a giant movie night, and invites the Hale pack and Scott and Allison and Lydia. They decide to watch How To Train Your Dragon 2, because apparently Stiles is the only one who’s seen it.  
  
Before they start the movie, though, Stiles decides it’s the best time to make his announcement. “So, everybody, I have some important news.” The room falls silent and everyone turns to him. It’s a cool feeling. Gotta love pack dynamics. “About five weeks ago, Derek and I were trying to rob a house -- sorry Dad! -- when we were almost murdered. Kate Argent locked us in a basement cellar and tried to burn us alive.   
  
“However, all of you already knew that. That’s not news. So, here’s the real headline: We Caught Her. Almost everyone here has been doing their part to find some sort of evidence to convict her, and we’ve done it.” Everyone in the room literally cheers. Like a baseball game or something. It’s adorable.  
  
“The case of the Hale fire in 2007 has been reopened in light of new evidence, and the amazing sheriff, right over here, is absolutely positive the crown is going to prosecute her.”  
  
Stiles’ dad pipes up from behind him. “She’s going to be locked up for a very, very long time.”  
  
Cheers erupt again, and Stiles sits down with his popcorn to curl into Derek, and he pretends he can’t tell Lydia is kind of staring at them.  
  
Later, as she’s leaving, Lydia will laugh with Stiles and tell him that she’s glad he’s found Derek, but that he’s not to bail on her anymore. Scott will tell them that he knew the entire time, and Allison will kiss them both on the cheek. The betas will start a group hug that literally everyone joins in on, and lastly when he’s leaving the house for his shift, the Sheriff will put a hand on both of their shoulders and say he’s proud of them.  
  
Even later, after everyone is gone and it’s just him and Derek and the empty house, Stiles will accidentally step on Derek’s foot. Then he will accidentally call him “Der” when he apologizes. Then Stiles will cover his mouth, and apologize again, profusely, and realize that Maddy probably used the nickname most, after Laura. He will apologize until Derek tells him to stop.  
  
And that’s when Derek will kiss Stiles and tell him he can use the nickname.  
  
‘It’s okay, Stiles. You’re pack.”   
  
And then they will make use of the lock on Stiles’ bedroom door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys are great, thank you so much for reading to the end!! as always, comments and criticisms are always welcome.
> 
> contact me on  
> tumblr: grimegarage


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